Charles  Josselyn 


30LOGT 

EDUC. 

PSYCH. 

LIBRARY, 


UUK 

HIDDEN  FORCES 

(La  Psychologie  Inconnue) 


?i 


By  EMILE  BQIRAC 
Translated  with  a  Preface  by  Dr.  W.  de  KERLOR 

Professor  Emile  Boirac,  Rector  of  the  Academy  of  Dijon, 
France,  an  acknowledgredleader  in  things  psychological  and  psychic, 
has  devoted  years  to  the  study  and  solution  of  problems  pertaining 
to  Life  and  Death,  and  has  achieved  notable  results  in  experiment- 
ing with  the  hidden  forces  in  men. 

Every  human  being  possesses  latent,  unsuspected 
powers  of  magnetic  attraction.  This  physiological 
magnetism,  or  psychic  force,  which  permeates  us  all 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  is  exerted  by  us  uncon- 
sciously upon  all  people  with  whom  we  come  in  daily 
contact.  But  it  is  wasted  because  of  our  ignorance  of 
it.  It  can  and  should  be  studied,  controlled,  intensified, 
and  exerted  at  will. 

The  author  has  shown  that  the  magnetism  which  radiates  from 
human  beings  can  be  sent  from  one  individual  to  another  along  an 
ordinary  wire,  as  can  electricity  along  a  telephone  wire;  and  it  can 
be  sent  from  one  human  being  to  another  without  contact,  as  can 
electricity  in  wireless  telegraphy.  While  this  human  magnetism 
is  by  far  the  greatest  and  the  most  important  of  the  hidden  forces 
in  man,  there  are  other  forces  no  less  interesting.  All  of  these, 
and  allied  subjects,  are  analyzed  in  this  volume. 


Of  the  many  coniributio7is  submitted  to  the  Academie 
des  Sciences  of  Paris,  in  a  competitive  contest, 
this   book   was   awarded  a  prize    of  2,000  francs. 


With  4  illustrations  from  photographs.  Cloth,  8vo.  net  $2.50 


Publishers      -      FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY      -       New  York 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 


THE  BOIRAC  METHOD 


This  is  a  variation  of  the  Moutin  Process  for  determining  the 
sensitiveness  of  a  person  to  magnetic  influence.  As  the  subject  does 
not  know  the  operator's  intention,  there  can  be  no  possibility  of 
fraud. —  rai(e  SS. 


*  *       .  • 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 
THE  FUTURE 

("L'AVENIR  DES  SCIENCES  PSYCHIQUES") 


BY 

EMILE  BOIRAC 

LATE  RECTOR  OF  THE  ACADEMY  OF  DIJON 

Author  of* 'Our  Hidden  Forces''  ("La  Psychologie  inconnue'') 


TRANSLATED  AND  EDITED  WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

W.  DE  KERLOR 

ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Br/032 


^XuXXiOA     C 


lya^sjitjpO, 


Copt/right,  1918^  hy 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Compaky 

All  rights  reserved 


/C^^f^. 


.^. 


TRANSLATOR'S  NOTE 

The  immediate  success  which  the  translation  of  La 
psychologie  inconnue  {Our  Hidden  Forces)  received, 
and  the  sympathetic  response  it  created  in  all  sections 
of  the  American  public,  justly  encouraged  me  to  trans- 
late the  present  work.  Its  title,  ''  The  Psychology  of 
the  Future,"  seems  to  me  fully  justified;  for  the  mat- 
ter contained  in  its  pages  constitutes  an  entirely  new 
departure  in  the  field  of  psychological  study  and  ex- 
perimentation. 

Hitherto,  psychological  experimentation  has  been 
limited  to  the  investigation  of  mental  processes,  to  the 
principles  of  appeal  and  response  as  applied  to  business 
and  everyday  life,  to  the  relieving  of  mental  and  nerv- 
ous ills,  to  self-analysis  with  a  view  to  determining  vo- 
cational aptitudes,  the  qualities  and  defects  of  the  psy- 
cho-physiological organism  of  man.  In  a  word,  the 
psychology  of  the  present  day  has  limited  itself  to  the 
field  of  man's  conscious  and  unconscious,  objective 
and  subjective,  activities;  but  it  has  not  as  systematic- 
ally devoted  itself  to  the  investigation  and  experimen- 
tation of  his  hyperconscious  activities. 

In  the  world  of  learning,  there  are  always  two  as- 
pects: the  academic  and  the  pioneer.  As  a  rule,  the 
academic  aspect  is  years  behind  the  true  facts  which 
constitute  human  knowledge.  For  years  it  lingers  in 
reticence,  routine,  and  scepticism.  It  abhors  the  birth 
of  new  things  which  tend  to  alter  or  change  its  funda- 

V 

615&43 


vi  TRANSLATOR'S  NOTE 

mental  concepts  of  life  and  man.  Its  organism  is  like 
that  of  an  old  man :  made  up  of  habits,  opinions  and  no- 
tions, content  in  routine. 

But,  as  in  the  scheme  of  the  universe  new  things 
always  supersede  the  old,  and  are  revolutionary 
in  their  process  of  evolution,  so  we  may  trace,  in 
the  habits  of  the  old  man  or  of  the  old  system,  the  ap- 
parent resistance  to  their  adoption.  Conventional 
thought  and  conventional  habits  form,  therefore,  the 
primary  obstacles  to  the  speedy  evolution  of  human 
progress,  in  society  as  well  as  in  knowledge.  And  if 
we  could  only  remove  the  beam  of  conventional-think- 
ing from  our  eye,  we  would  at  once  see  clearly  and 
justly  into  the  realm  of  the  mysterious  subconscious 
and  hyperconscious  self. 

Although  the  subjects  dealt  with  in  this  book  have 
been  known  to  exist  by  a  few  scientific  pioneers  of 
thought,  and  have  been  practised  by  a  still  greater 
number  of  unscientific  enthusiasts,  it  is  but  very  recently 
that  the  academic  bodies  of  learning  have  been  willing 
—  though  reluctantly  so  —  to  lend  their  ear  to  the 
overwhelming  accumulation  of  facts.  The  mass  of 
evidence,  now  gathered,  of  the  phenomena  of  thought- 
transmission,  divination,  prophecy,  psychic  and  mental 
healing,  and  transcendental  manifestions,  has  opened 
wide  the  breach  into  the  citadel  of  conservatism. 
These  facts  are  at  last  about  to  conquer  *'  their  place 
in  the  sun  "  in  the  world  of  academic  thought.  They 
have  crossed  their  Rubicon. 
/  Do  we  not  already  see  experiments  of  thought-trans- 
/  mission  in  certain  psychological  laboratories?  Are 
^  there  not  many  large  business  houses  employing  the 


TRANSLATOR'S  NOTE  vii 

services  of  psychologists  and  psychics  as  advisers, 
whether  in  the  selection  of  *'  the  right  peg  for  the  right 
hole,"  or  in  the  counsehng  of  future  policies?  Are 
there  not  to  be  found,  daily,  advertising  men  and 
"  knights  of  the  pen  "  who  are  consciously  alive  to  the 
fact  that  their  thoughts  are  flying  about  and  are  "  being 
caught  "?  And  where  are  the  employers  who  are  not 
conscious  of  the  "  harmonious  atmosphere  "  of  their 
secretaries  and  managers;  and  do  they  not  reject  those 
whose  *'  personal  atmospheres  "  they  find  not  to  har- 
monize with  their  own  mental  and  personal  atmos- 
pheres ? 

I  feel  that  it  would  not  be  too  presumptuous  to  say 
that  when  political,  military,  and  business  heads  will 
have  found  the  method  whereby  they  can  select  their 
co-workers  by  their  "  personal  atmospheres "  uner- 
ringly, there  will  be  fewer  cabinet  changes,  fewer  blun- 
ders made,  and  less  time  and  energy  lost,  not  to  men- 
tion the  friction  and  the  life  enmities  often  created. 
But  theirs  is  not  the  business  to  find  the  method.  It  is 
for  science  to  make  haste  and  find  it,  and  give  it  to  the 
world.  It  is  for  scientists  trained  in  the  conventional 
schools  of  learning  to  divest  themselves  of  their  en- 
cumbering mental  baggage,  to  take  their  coats  off,  and 
go  energetically  to  work  in  their  laboratories,  with  new 
methods  of  research  and  newer  ideals. 

With  the  advent  of  radium,  X-rays,  wireless  teleg- 
raphy, and  telephony,  new  problems  have  been  created 
to  which  new  solutions  have  had  to  be  found.  With 
the  coming  of  psycho-therapy  and  psycho-analysis  — 
which  have  laid  bare  the  soul  of  man,  to  himself  and 
to  others  —  new  problems,  also,  have  developed;  new 


viii  TRANSLATOR'S  NOTE 

faculties  have  been  found  in  activity.  Within  himsejf, 
man  —  the  microcosm  —  has  the  potentialities  of  a 
universe:  his  will,  his  thoughts,  his  "radiations,"  his 
presentiments,  his  visions. 

Man :  body,  soul,  and  spirit.  A  carnal  self,  a  mental 
self,  an  unconscious  and  a  superconscious  self.  A 
higher  self  and  a  beastly-brutal  self.  Man's  conscious- 
ness is  the  go-between  that  links  the  higher  and  the 
lower  realms  of  his  own  universe.  In  the  life  of  the 
poet,  the  artist,  the  mystic,  consciousness  of  the  higher, 
super-normal  activities  is  of  daily  occurrence.  Not  so, 
however,  with  the  materialist;  for  his  mind  is  too  en- 
grossed with  material  concepts:  dollars  and  cents  and 
power  and  possession.  They  obscure  his  consciousness 
of  the  higher,  the  better,  the  truer  things  of  life. 

The  democratic-consciousness  which  is  sweeping  the 
world  to-day,  hurling  crowns  and  princes  into  the  abyss 
of  dark  oWivion,  heralds  the  coming  of  a  new  age.  It 
speaks  of  the  beginning  of  a  new  cycle  in  the  evolution 
of  man.  It  brings  in  its  trail:  freedom  of  thought, 
freedom  of  action,  equality,  and  the  emancipation  from 
the  old  order  of  things.  The  old  is  making  place  for 
the  new.  A  new  sense  is  being  born.  It  is  the  "  sense 
of  life." 

But  on  the  battlefields  of  the  old  world  many  are 
they,  also,  who  are  developing  a  new  sense:  "  the  sense 
of  death  " —  that  inward  sense,  the  sense  of  premoni- 
tion which  tells  the  conscious  self  that  the  old  must 
make  place  for  the  new.  A  new  life  in  a  new  world ;  a 
new  humanity  in  place  of  the  old. 

The  eighteenth  century  was  the  age  of  rationalist 
reaction.     The  nineteenth  that  of  science  and  of  me- 


TRANSLATOR'S  NOTE  ix 

chanical  inventions,  material  withal.  The  twentieth  is 
the  age  of  psychology,  the  age  of  the  "  science  of  man." 
Vocational  and  applied  psychology  together  with 
psycho-therapy  already  pave  the  way.  Another  step 
forward  will  bring  us  nearer  to  the  realization  of  the 
Soul  in  man,  then  the  God  in  man. 

May  this  work,  therefore,  help  to  hasten  the  making 
of  the  science  of  man.  May  it  find  a  sympathetic  re- 
sponse at  the  hands  of  young  and  new  pioneers :  makers 
of  the  new  race  where  men  shall  judge  their  brothers, 
not  in  the  light  of  their  worldly,  weighty  possessions, 
but  in  the  light  of  their  souls,  and  with  the  "  single  eye  " 
of  their  spirit. 

W.  DE  Kerlor. 

New  York,  January,  191 8. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Translator's  Note v 

Introduction i 

I    How  the  Psychical  Sciences  Stand  To-Day  19 

II    The  Right  and  the  Wrong  Methods      .     .  32 

III  Observation,  the  First  Step 41 

IV  How  to  Experiment 52 

V    The  Role  of  the  Hypothesis 64 

VI    Our  Latent  Psychic  Faculties      ....     76 

VII    Hypnotism,  or  Artificial  Hypnosis      ...     94 

VIII    Suggestion:  As  a  Fact  and  as  an  Hypoth- 
esis      107 

IX    An  Unknown  Force:  Animal  Magnetism     .   145 

X    The  Communication  of  Thought,  or  "  Dia- 

psychism '* .   175 

XI    Clairvoyance,  or  "  Metagnomy  "  .     .     .     .  232 

XII    Spiritism  and  Cryptopsychism 264 

Appendices 

Note      I    Science  and  Magic   .     .     .     .291 

Note    II    The    Religious    Problem    and 

the  Psychical  Sciences  .     .  296 

Note  III    The  Radiation  of  the  Human 

Brain 311 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Boirac  Method Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGB 

The  Pendulum 28 

Automatic  Writing 60 

The  Moutin  Process     . 86 

Inducing  Somnambulism 158 

Exteriorization  of  the  Sensitiveness 214 

Crystal  Gazing 258 


INTRODUCTION 

Can  the  study  of  psychical  phenomena  really  become 
a  science? 

A  science,  according  to  the  general  conception,  con- 
sists in  a  systematized  ensemble  of  knowledge  of  facts, 
each  clearly  defined  yet  all  so  closely  related  as  to  form 
a  veritable  system  in  which  each  supports  and  explains 
the  other  in  logical  sequence:  as,  for  example,  mathe- 
matics. This  was  the  idea  of  the  ancient  philosophers, 
and  it  has  become  the  classical  conception. 

Science  as  thus  understood  acquires  a  dogmatic 
authority.  It  is  opposed  absolutely  not  only  to  igno- 
rance, but  also  to  more  or  less  probable  opinion  or 
belief.  When  once  established,  it  becomes  as  immu- 
table as  Truth  itself.  It  is  transmitted  through  teach- 
ing; and  the  disciple  or  pupil  can  but  accept  it  docilely 
from  the  hands  of  those  who  have  received  and  treas- 
ured it.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  libraries,  schools, 
universities,  and  academies  have  become  the  sanctu- 
aries of  science. 

But  it  is  evident  that  all  those  who  hold  this  concep- 
tion find  it  difficult  to  think  of  psychical  matters  as  a 
science.  Vainly  might  one  search  for  a  series  of  doc- 
trines, solidly  established  and  rigorously  related,  that 
would  correspond  to  that  title.  But  does  such  a  con- 
ception of  science  actually  conform  to  reality?  Does 
it  not  represent  an  ideal  toward  which  all  the  sciences 
lean,  which  might  not  be  entirely  realized  in  any  of 


2      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

them,   not  even  in  mathematics,   the  closest  of  all? 

If  science  were  to  fall  from  heaven,  ready-made  by 
some  supra-terrestrial  genius,  it  no  doubt  would  verify 
the  definition  just  given;  as  it  is  left  in  the  hands  of 
men  to  make,  and  as  men  must  make  it  slowly,  pro- 
gressively, not  without  hesitation  and  error,  the  result 
is  that  two  periods  are  obtained :  ( i )  that  in  which 
science  is  in  the  process  of  being  made;  (2)  that  in 
which  it  is  made,  at  least  to  some  extent.  This  cor- 
responds to  the  period  in-fieri  of  the  scholastics,  and  to 
that  of  science  in-facto.  Perhaps  these  are  not  two 
successive  periods,  but  rather  two  points  of  view  which 
coexist  and  from  which  all  science  can  and  must  be 
judged :  the  point  of  view  of  the  researcher  who  creates 
it  and  that  of  the  professor  who  teaches  it.  There  is 
always,  in  it,  on  the  one  hand  a  knowledge  acquired  and 
integral,  and  on  the  other  hand  a  knowledge  in  the 
process  of  acquisition  and  integration,  a  static  in-facto 
and  dynamic  in-fieri.  It  can  be  demonstrated  through 
numerous  examples  that  the  proportion  of  the  in-facto 
and  of  the  in-fieri  varies  from  one  science  to  another, 
and  even  in  a  particular  science  according  to  the  period 
of  its  history  in  which  it  Is  being  considered. 

Mathematics  appears  to  many  the  perfect  type  of 
established  science,  forever  immobilized  in  the  posses- 
sion of  eternal  truths.  Yet  do  we  not  behold,  with 
each  successive  generation,  a  host  of  new  thinkers,  con- 
quering new  fields  in  the  domain  of  thought?  For  a 
mathematician  of  genius,  such  as  Descartes,  Liebnitz, 
Cauchy,  Poincare,  for  example,  is  not  the  real  science 
that  which  he  Invents  and  to  which  he  gives  life? 


INTRODUCTION  3 

The  history  of  physics  shows,  it  would  seem,  succes- 
sive periods  In  which  the  static  and  the  dynamic  view- 
points alternately  predominate.  Take  the  first  half  of 
the  past  century,  for  instance:  the  physicists  were  not 
far  from  considering  that  their  science  had  been  com- 
pleted, at  least  in  Its  essential  parts.  Each  chapter  of 
which  it  was  composed  —  weight,  sound,  light,  heat, 
electricity  —  undoubtedly  might  be  capable  of  new  de- 
velopments; but  It  was  not  believed  possible  that  any 
new  chapters  could  be  opened.  Nature,  as  a  whole, 
it  was  thought,  was  virtually  understood  in  all  her 
phases,  and  the  task  of  the  future  would  lie  solely  in 
depth  and  not  In  width.  Yet,  one  after  the  other,  the 
successive  discoveries  of  the  "  X-rays  "  and  of  the  ra- 
diating properties  of  matter,  radium,  etc.,  came  to  de- 
throne the  limits  too  hastily  fixed.  /And  it  would  not 
be  an  exaggeration  to  assert  that  what  we  know  of 
physics  to-day  is  practically  nothing  in  comparison  with 
what  yet  remains  to  be  discovered.^ 

This  is  true  also  of  chemistry  and  biology.  For  in 
these  sciences  too  we  can  distinguish,  on  the  one  hand, 
an  ensemble  of  acquired  knowledge  ready  to  be  used 
for  the  purpose  of  education,  while  on  the  other  hand 
we  see  an  ensemble  of  researches  being  made,  or  still 
in  the  stage  of  project,  awaiting  the  moment  of  being 
taken  out  of  the  laboratories  then  to  be  handed  to  the 
schools. 

Should  we,  then,  reserve  the  name  "  science  "  ex- 
clusively for  that  of  the  two  which  turns  its  attention  to 
the  past,  and  refuse  it  to  that  which  is  directed  toward 
the  future  ?     Is  not  the  researcher  entitled  to  the  name 


4      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

of  scientist  at  least  as  much  as,  if  not  more  than,  the 
professor? 

Let  us  say  that  the  more  complex  a  science  is,  the 
more  difficult,  the  more  recent  its  constitution,  the 
greater  is  the  part  played  by  researches  than  that  by 
knowledge.  And  this  is  just  the  position  of  the  psy- 
chical sciences.  As  yet  they  are  hardly  organized,  but 
this  makes  them  all  the  more  attractive  for  the  student 
bent  on  research,  for  the  unknown  quantities  are  full  of 
promises  and  of  hopes. 

In  order  to  justify  the  existence  of  these  sciences, 
therefore,  it  is  sufficient  to  show  the  existence  of  the 
object  of  their  researches,  and  that  it  really  belongs  to 
the  world  of  realities. 

That,  precisely,  is  the  aim  of  this  book. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  well  to  trace  the  principal 
reason  for  the  defiant  objections  leveled  against  psy- 
chical sciences.  At  first  they  were  called  occult  sci- 
ences. They  belonged  in  the  beginning  to  that  en- 
semble of  empiric  observations  and  traditions  known 
as  astrology,  alchemy,  chiromancy,  magic,  and  other 
such  pseudo-sciences  of  the  Medieval  and  Renaissance 
periods.  It  is  only  since  barely  two  centuries  ago  that 
they  have  emerged  from  this  chaos,  although  we  may 
still  see  the  mystic  attitude  of  mind  of  the  ancient 
adepts  in  those  who  conduct  their  investigations  to-day. 
This  should  form  a  stronger  reason,  therefore,  for 
scientists  to  introduce,  with  all  the  concentrated  efforts 
of  their  energies,  the  real  scientific  spirit  of  the  experi- 
mental method. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

And,  with  this  attitude  of  mind,  just  as  astronomy 
emerged  from  astrology  and  chemistry  from  alchemy, 
so  will  the  psychical  sciences  emerge  from  magic  and 
sorcery. 

One  might  say  that  all  the  sciences,  without  excep- 
tion, and  including  mathematics,  pass  successively 
through  two  phases  in  their  history :  a  mystic  phase,  to 
which  occultism  corresponds;  and  a  positive  phase, 
which  is  that  of  positive  science. 

The  sole  difference  between  them  is  that  some  passed 
rapidly  from  the  first  phase  to  the  second;  in  certain 
others  this  passage  was  effected  slowly  and  gradually; 
and  in  still  others,  it  occurred  after  a  greater  lapse  of 
time  and  the  transition  was  sudden  and  quick.  In  this 
we  find  a  sort  of  verification  of  the  celebrated  law  of 
the  three  states  formulated  by  the  founder  of  the  posi- 
tivist  school,  Auguste  Comte,  according  to  which  all 
human  knowledge  passes  necessarily  through  the  theo- 
logical state  (or  mystical)  to  the  positive  state  (or  sci- 
entific), passing  through  the  metaphysical  state  (or 
philosophical)  as  intermediary  by  its  position  and  na- 
ture between  the  other  two. 

It  is  true  that  it  might  be  objected  that  this  trans- 
formation has  not  been  quite  complete  and  that  in  cer- 
tain of  the  sciences,  and  particularly  in  the  psychical, 
the  old  or  occult  form  remains  side  by  side  with  the 
modern  or  positive  form.  At  the  present  time  there 
are  still  believers  in  animal  magnetism  and  in  spiritism 
whose  state  of  mind  does  not  differ  to  any  appreciable 
extent  from  that  of  the  occultists  of  the  Middle  Ages 
and  of  the  Renaissance  period.  Similarly  it  may  be 
said  that  alchemy  and  astrology  still  retain  a  host  of 


6      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

firmly  convinced  partisans  and  believers.  This  may  be 
a  regrettable  fact,  but  is  it  astronomy  and  chemistry 
that  suffer?  The  loss  is  wholly  for  those  who  persist 
in  confounding  doctrines  built  on  mere  faith  and  imag- 
ination with  researches  which  depend  exclusively  upon 
experimentation  and  reasoning. 

Hitherto,  we  have  spoken  of  the  psychical  sciences, 
as  if  the  study  of  psychical  phenomena  must  necessarily 
be  divided  into  several  distinct  sciences.  But  would  it 
not  be  more  legitimate  to  say  that  there  is  but  one 
psychical  science:  that  which  we  ourselves  have  called 
unknown  psychology   {psychologie  inconnue)  ? 

We  have  attempted  to  show  that  there  is  no  con- 
tradiction in  admitting  certain  particular  psychical 
sciences  side  by  side  with  a  general  psychical  science, 
according  to  one's  position:  analytical  or  synthetical. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  phenomena  which  are  the  object 
of  these  sciences  can  be  classified  in  groups  sufficiently 
distinct  so  that  each  of  them  may  become  a  special 
science;  on  the  other  hand,  they  have  in  common  such 
important  characteristics,  they  are  related  to  one  an- 
other by  such  close  and  numerous  ties,  that,  in  order 
to  study  them  profitably,  one  must  necessarily  take  into 
consideration  the  keen  affinity  and  the  intimate  solidar- 
ity which  unites  them. 

To  designate  these  different  sciences  and  their  own 
particular  orders  of  phenomena  it  has  seemed  to  us 
indispensable  to  devise  new  names.  This  is  done  con- 
stantly in  the  case  of  all  sciences  which  encompass  new 
objects  and  new  relations  as  they  grow.  In  Our  Hid- 
den Forces  we  found  it  necessary  to  introduce  such 


INTRODUCTION  7 

new  words  as  hypnology,  cryptopsychism,  psychody- 
namy,  telepsychism,  hyloscopy,  etc. ;  and  in  the  present 
work  we  are  using  metagnomy ,  biactinism,  diapsychism, 
etc. 

We  have  been  reproached  for  the  creation  of  these 
neologisms  taken  from  the  Greek,  and  which  appear 
somewhat  barbarous  and  pretentious.  Yet  the  im- 
portance of  the  language  and  vocabulary  in  the  gen- 
eral economy  of  science  is  generally  recognized.  Con- 
dillac^s  aphorism,  "  All  errors,  without  exaggeration, 
proceed  from  our  habit  of  using  certain  words  before 
determining  their  proper  signification,  or  even  before 
having  felt  the  need  of  determining  it,'^  is  especially 
applicable  to  the  psychical  sciences. 

Unfortunately,  the  students  of  these  sciences  have 
not  always  been  aware  of  the  importance  of  having  a 
really  appropriate  language.  They  were  satisfied  with 
the  use  of  current  words  to  designate  new  facts  or  to 
express  new  ideas ;  and  it  is  those  very  words  which  now 
are  an  obstacle  to  the  formation  of  a  rational  vocabu- 
lary. For  many  of  the  difficulties  which  have  impeded 
the  progress  of  the  psychical  sciences  have  been  due  to 
the  insufficiency  of  their  verbal  equipment. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  controversies  between  the 
School  of  Nancy  and  the  School  of  the  Salpetriere  upon 
the  nature  of  suggestion  and  hypnotism.  In  current 
language,  the  word  suggestion  designates  a  very  simple 
and  banal  fact  which,  from  the  psychological  point  of 
view,  is  reduced  to  an  association  of  ideas.  To  use  it 
to  designate  an  entirely  different  and  less  ordinary  fact, 
in  which  the  customary  laws  of  thought  and  action  ap- 
pear momentarily  upset, —  does  this  not  give  the  im- 


8      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

pression,  prior  to  all  examination,  that  the  two  facts  are 
identical  in  reality?  Similarly,  when  Braid  coined  the 
word  hypnotism  to  designate  a  certain  state  in  which 
human  beings  can  be  placed  by  means  of  certain  proc- 
esses, he  asserted  that  this  state  was  of  the  same 
nature  as  sleep.  It  is  wholly  a  theory  which  is  insin- 
uated by  this  word,  no  less  misleading  than  the  word 
suggestion;  and  unless  we  were  put  on  our  guard  we 
should  be  dragged  into  endless  discussions  such  as  were 
instigated  by  the  Schools  of  Charcot,  Liebeault,  and 
Bernheim. 

We  cannot  propose  the  substitution  of  ideoplasty  and 
hypotaxy,  created  by  Durand  de  Gros,  for  the  words 
suggestion  and  hypnotism,  although  the  phenomena  are 
rendered  less  equivocal  by  their  use.  It  is  too  difficult 
to  swim  against  the  current  of  acquired  habits ! 

In  the  same  way,  the  term  animal  magnetism,  intro- 
duced by  Mesmer  and  his  disciples  to  designate  a  whole 
ensemble  of  parapsychical  facts,  irreducible  by  hypoth- 
esis to  the  facts  of  suggestion  and  hypnotism  notwith- 
standing their  analogies,  is  responsible  for  a  great 
part  of  the  repugnance  which  scientists  still  manifest 
toward  it.  This  term  not  only  designates  a  certain 
order  of  facts :  it  implies  at  the  same  time  an  hypothe- 
sis, it  prejudges  the  explanation  of  these  facts.  And 
as  a  result,  all  those  to  whom  this  hypothesis  is  repug- 
nant, all  those  who  find  the  explanation  inadmissible, 
reject  the  facts  themselves  and  refuse  to  study  them. 

For  this  reason  we  have  found  it  desirable  to  sub- 
stitute a  new  term  for  the  old.  The  word  biactinism, 
without  allusion  to  any  hypothesis,  to  any  explanation, 
serves  to  designate  merely  "  the  action  which  the  nerv- 


INTRODUCTION  9 

ous  systems  of  two  individuals  may  exert,  one  upon  the 
other;  any  communication  whatsoever  that  is  estab- 
lished between  them,"  with  the  ensemble  of  the  result- 
ing effects. 

A  similar  contention  might  be  made  as  to  the  word 
spiritism,  which  is  as  equivocal  and  misleading  as  the 
others.  For  it  is  now  applied  to  a  certain  philosophi- 
cal, if  not  religious,  doctrine  which  admits  of  the  inter- 
vention of  the  dead, —  souls  or  spirits, —  in  the  affairs 
of  this  world.  And  it  is  applied  equally  to  a  certain 
ensemble  of  enigmatical  facts  which  some  pretend  to  ex- 
plain by  an  intervention  of  this  nature,  but  for  which 
a  totally  different  explanation  may  be  conceived  —  facts 
that  can  and  should  become  the  objects  of  systematical 
study.  Here,  again,  it  would  be  necessary  to  find  a  new 
denomination,  foreign  to  all  the  old  associated  ideas, 
one  which  would  not  implicate  a  sort  of  tacit  faith  in 
"  discarnated  spirits.''  But  such  a  denomination  has 
yet  to  be  found. 

A  third  disadvantage  in  terms  borrowed  from  or- 
dinary language  is  that  they  are  difficult  to  handle  and 
do  not  lend  themselves  well  to  the  formation  of  deriva- 
tives and  compound  names,  which  science  needs  con- 
stantly. If,  for  instance,  physics  had  to  limit  itself  to 
the  words  warmth  and  heat  it  would  be  most  embar- 
rassed, in  speaking  of  all  that  relates  to  heat  and 
warmth,  in  dealing  with  the  measure  of  heat  and  the 
instruments  pertaining  to  it,  with  the  theory  of  the  rap- 
ports existing  between  mechanical  work  and  heat  quan- 
tities, etc.  All  the  difficulty  is  eliminated,  however, 
by  the  use  of  such  words  as  thermic,  thermometer,  ther^ 
mometry,  thermodynamic,  and  others. 


lo    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

This  is  precisely  what  the  psychical  sciences  will  need 
in  the  process  of  their  evolution:  a  vocabulary  that  is 
at  once  supple  and  easy  of  manipulation.  We  easily 
can  see,  in  this  connection,  that  the  term  hypnotism  is 
preferable  to  nervous  sleep  or  artificial  somnambulism, 
which  it  has  replaced;  for  how  could  one  obtain  with 
those  words  the  equivalent  of  such  derivatives  as  hyp- 
notic, hypnotizable,  to  hypnotize,  hypnotist,  hypnotizer, 
etc.  ? 

For  the  same  reason,  instead  of  the  terms  lucidity, 
clairvoyance,  second-sight,  double-sight,  etc.,  we  would 
prefer  the  word  metagnomy;  for  this,  besides  the 
greater  generalization  of  its  meaning,  has  the  advan- 
tage of  giving  the  derivative  metagnomic,  and  of  per- 
mitting such  expressions  as  metagnomic  perception, 
metagnomic  memory,  metagnomic  rays,  metagnomic 
negatives,  etc.  And  similar  neologisms,  in  connection 
with  other  popular  expressions,  would  be  more  than 
justifiable  in  replacing  mental  suggestions,  transmission 
or  penetration  of  thought,  transfer  of  the  personality, 
dissociation  of  consciousness,  and  even  exteriorization 
of  the  sensibility,  motricity,  etc. 

But  the  constitution  of  a  technical  vocabulary  for  the 
psychical  sciences  will  not  be  made  without  resistance 
and  slow  progress.  The  great  number  of  people  to 
whom  the  coining  of  new  words  is  repugnant  and  even 
those  who  believe  in  their  necessity  will  not  always  be 
in  accord  as  to  their  choice.  All  sciences,  however, 
have  encountered  similar  difficulties,  until  in  the  course 
of  time  the  objections  have  been  met.  This,  we  may 
believe,  will  be  equally  true  with  the  psychical  sciences. 


INTRODUCTION  ii 

Although  psychical  phenomena  have  aroused  the 
curiosity  of  men  for  a  long  time  past,  the  sciences  which 
have  these  phenomena  for  their  object  have  not  yet 
been  given  a  place  in  the  ensemble  of  the  sciences.  Yet 
it  is  clear  enough,  as  the  name  itself  indicates,  that  they 
are  linked  to  psychology,  not  as  a  part  of  philosophy, 
but  as  an  experimental  science. 

If  it  be  established  that  the  phenomena  are  not  only 
abnormal  or  super-normal,  but  essentially  pathological, 
it  could  be  said  that  they  constitute  a  special  branch  of 
morbid  psychology  or  psychopathology.  But  such  a 
thesis  is  not  yet  proved.  It  would  be  more  exact  to 
say  that  they  constitute  a  sort  of  side  psychology,  or 
parapsychology,  recognizing,  at  the  same  time,  that  the 
relations  between  this  and  psychopathology  are  numer- 
ous and  most  important. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  divisions  which 
we  imagine  in  our  classifications  of  the  many  different 
orders  of  natural  phenomena  are  all  more  or  less  ar- 
bitrary and  artificial.  Thus  psychology,  in  its  en- 
semble, is  inseparable  from  physiology;  and  physiology 
is  inseparable  from  the  physical  sciences.  The  soul  is 
non-existent  without  life;  and  life  is  not  existent  with- 
out matter.  It  should  not  be  surprising,  therefore,  if 
the  psychical  sciences  go  even  beyond  psychology  and 
penetrate  physiology,  especially  the  physiology  of  the 
brain  and  of  the  nervous  system ;  or  perhaps  they  may 
go  even  farther,  In  the  regions  of  physics,  where  the 
theory  of  the  most  subtle  and  Imponderable  forces  of 
nature  are  elaborated.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
these  sciences  can  progress  only  slowly ;  for  their  prog- 


12     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

ress  is  conditioned  to  a  large  extent  by  that  of  those 
more  general  sciences  upon  which  they  depend  and  to 
which  they  contribute.^ 

To  conduct  experimentation  satisfactorily,  researches 
specializing  in  the  psychical  sciences  should  be  assured 
the  constant  collaboration  of  psychologists,  physiolo- 
gists, and  physicists  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
methods  and  results  of  their  respective  sciences.  Or 
else  each  of  the  specialists  in  psychical  research  should 
be  a  combined  physicist-physiologist-psychologist. 
That,  however,  is  a  difficult  combination  to  realize. 
In  fact,  all  those  who  hitherto  have  studied  these  phe- 
nomena have  been  recruited  from  among  medical  men 
and  physiologists  —  Mesmer,  Charcot,  Dumontpallier, 
Bernheim,  Richet,  Joire,  Janet,  etc. ;  from  among  physi- 
cists and  chemists  —  Reichenbach,  Gregory,  William 
Crookes,  Oliver  Lodge,  etc. ;  or  from  among  the  ranks 
of  philosophers,  moralists,  litterateurs  —  many  were 
mere  "  amateurs  " —  Flournoy,  William  James,  Fred- 
eric Myers,  and  most  of  the  members  of  the  S.  P.  R. 
of  London  and  New  York.  It  is  perhaps  the  psycholo- 
gists who  have  been  least  numerous,  although  it  would 
seem  that  psychology,  more  than  any  other  branch  of 
science,  should  be  able  to  dissipate  the  heavy  mist  that 
still  surrounds  the  psychical  sciences. 

A  frequent  objection  leveled  against  psychical  re- 
search is  that  one  cannot  see  what  practical  value  it  may 
have,  even  if  it  were  to  be  brought  to  a  satisfactory 

1  It  cannot  be  believed  otherwise  than  that  the  experimental  re- 
searches conducted  by  William  Crookes  in  certain  parapsychical  phe- 
nomena influenced  him  in  his  conceptions  of  the  radio-activity  of 
matter  and  of  the  discoveries  which  followed. 


INTRODUCTION  13 

conclusion.  No  science,  we  are  taught,  has  as  its  goal 
the  mere  satisfaction  of  a  purely  speculative  curiosity. 
Scientific  theories  are  fully  justified  only  when  their 
application  and  the  power  they  confer  upon  man  assures 
him  the  ability  to  enslave  the  forces  of  nature  at  will. 
The  difference  between  science  and  philosophy,  or  the 
ancient  conception  and  the  modern,  is  that  to-day  we 
expect  from  science  not  only  a  knowledge  of  reality, 
but  also  a  knowledge  of  the  means  to  modify  and 
transform  it  for  our  own  use.  Said  Auguste  Comte: 
"  Know,  so  that  you  may  foresee  and  provide." 

If  the  psychical  sciences  do  not  meet  this  condition, 
they  will  not  merit  the  name  of  science. 

Although  we  recognize  the  fact  that  science  cannot 
consist  in  a  sort  of  intellectual  dilettantism  which  would 
have  no  interest  in  the  aims  of  practical  life,  we  must 
also  appreciate  that  its  proper  and  immediate  object 
is,  above  all  things,  the  real,  and  not  merely  the  useful 
or  proper;  and  that  in  the  interest  of  its  own  task  it 
should  impose  upon  itself  a  provisional,  relative,  and 
apparent  disinterestedness  in  regard  to  every  other  ob- 
ject. It  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  anticipate  what 
useful  appHcations  may  result  from  the  discovery  of  a 
truth  which,  at  first  sight,  may  appear  thoroughly  ster- 
ile in  practical  possibilities.  The  scientist  who  would 
aim  systematically  at  the  practical  instead  of  first  aim- 
ing at  the  real,  would  inevitably  miss  the  real  and  the 
useful. 

In  the  psychical  sciences,  the  first  group  —  which 
includes  all  the  hypnotic  and  suggestive  facts  —  already 
has  been  advanced  sufficiently  far  to  permit  of  practi- 
cal applications.     We  do  not  refer  to  the  useful  con- 


14    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

tribution  to  psychology  in  general  for  the  experimental 
study  of  the  various  human  faculties:  consciousness, 
memory,  will,  etc.  This  usefulness  might  appear  more 
theoretical  than  practical.  We  do  not  refer  even  to 
the  services  which  this  first  group  —  hypnology  —  will 
render  in  obtaining  knowledge,  in  a  practical  way,  of 
the  character  of  individuals,  or  in  their  education  when 
the  processes  of  ordinary  pedagogy  have  failed,  not- 
withstanding the  interesting  indications  of  Durand  de 
Gros  and  Berillon.  We  refer  especially  to  medicine; 
for  it  Is  here  that  hypnology  has  its  most  important 
applications.  Every  one  knows  the  remarkable  results 
obtained  by  the  practitioners  of  the  School  of  Nancy, 
whose  method  is  now  In  current  use  In  the  practise  of 
psycho-therapy,  especially  in  the  treatment  of  nervous 
affections. 

The  other  branches  of  psychical  science  are  not  as 
yet  sufficiently  advanced  to  be  capable  of  being  util- 
ized unerringly  in  practical  ways.  When,  however,  the 
day  arrives  when  the  study  of  animal  magnetism,  sys- 
tematically pursued  in  a  scientific  spirit,  will  confirm  all 
that  is  expected  of  it.  It  will  then  positively  bring  a 
contribution  to  the  science  of  therapeutics  no  less  Im- 
portant than  that  of  hypnology.  For  whatever  exag- 
gerations may  be  found  in  the  stories  of  the  marvelous 
cures  reported  by  the  chroniclers  of  the  old  mesmerists, 
It  is  perfectly  evident  that  the  facts  described  by  them 
show  that  the  blactinic  force  emanating  from  the  human 
body  produces  some  singular  and  powerful  curative 
effects.  The  question  would  be  to  determine  with 
sufficient  precision  the  conditions  in  which  these  effects 
operate. 


INTRODUCTION  15 

Shall  we  ever  be  able  to  establish  scientifically  the 
reality,  and  so  be  able  to  formulate  the  laws,  of  the 
seemingly  incomprehensible  phenomenon  of  clairvoy- 
ance? If  in  the  future  the  reply  should  be  in  the  affirm- 
ative, it  would  not  be  too  daring  to  say  that  there  will 
be  found  in  man  an  organ  of  communication  which  can 
be  compared  with  telegraphy,  telephony,  and  telepho- 
tography. Already  there  are  many  who  have  been 
asking  whether  it  would  not  he  possible  to  utilize  the 
clairvoyant  faculty  in  helping  the  police  in  their  investi- 
gations; and  particularly  whether  this  could  not  he 
used  in  time  of  war,  to  foresee  the  means  of  attack  and 
of  defense  of  the  enemy.  But  our  present  knowledge 
of  the  mechanism  of  clairvoyance  is  too  imperfect  to 
justify  our  risking  an  instrument  of  which  we  are  not 
quite  sure.  Hyloscopy,  on  the  other  hand,  under  the 
form  of  actual  prospecting  for  water  and  mineral  de- 
posits, has  already  entered  the  field  of  practical  appli- 
cations. Have  not  the  French  already  used  the  divin- 
ing-rod and  the  pendulum  to  find  water  wells  in  Al- 
geria? Did  not  the  English  find,  by  the  same  means, 
wells  of  water  during  the  Gallipoli  expedition  in  re- 
gions thoroughly  deficient  in  drinkable  water?  And 
it  is  said  that  the  Germans  found  mines  in  their  colonial 
possessions  in  Africa  by  means  of  the  divining-rod. 
If,  as  is  asserted,  the  special  sensitiveness  which  is  re- 
vealed by  the  movements  of  the  rod  or  the  pendulum 
is  to  be  found  existent,  in  a  latent  state,  in  the  majority 
of  people,  it  perhaps  may  be  through  this  branch  of 
the  psychical  sciences  that  the  breach  will  be  opened 
through  which  all  the  others  shall  pass,  thereby  making 
it  impossible  to  doubt  the  reality  of  influences  which  to 


i6    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

our  material  senses  are  imperceptible,  yet  which  are 
capable  of  being  revealed  to  us  by  reactions  sui  generis 
of  our  nervous  system. 

To  go  a  step  farther,  it  is  not  premature  to  conceive 
the  day  when  even  the  spiritoidal  phenomena  will  be 
possible  of  practical  applications.  And  when  that  is 
realized,  it  will  mean  in  the  affairs  of  men  a  revolution 
as  considerable  as  that  produced  by  the  applications 
of  steam  or  of  electricity. 

Let  us  suppose  for  one  moment  that  It  can  be  proved 
experimentally  that  the  strange  phenomena  of  levita- 
tion,  materialization,  or  of  distant  action,  such  as  pro- 
duced by  mediums  like  Daniel  D.  Home  or  Eusapia 
Palladino,  are  phenomena  as  real  as  the  fall  of  a  stone, 
an  electrical  discharge,  or  a  chemical  combination. 
Let  us  suppose  still  farther  that  we  shall  be  able  to 
prove  experimentally  that  the  cause  of  these  effects  re- 
sides in  a  particular  condensation  or  transformation 
of  a  force  emanating  from  the  nervous  system,  and 
that  we  shall  discover  the  laws  according  to  which  this 
force,  latent  in  every  human  being,  acts,  develops,  and 
transforms  Itself.  What  then  would  we  need  in  order 
to  derive  from  these  theoretical  constatations  certain 
practical  consequences  of  extraordinary  value?  It 
would  be  necessary  that  the  laws  should  be  such  as  to 
enable  our  own  will  to  use  them  for  the  purpose  of 
manipulating  this  force,  as  It  already  can  utilize  the 
laws  that  govern  steam  and  electricity. 

It  Is  evident  that  we  do  not  know,  to-day,  whether 
such  a  condition  can  be  realized.  It  may  be  that  the 
productive  energy  of  the  Palladlnlan  phenomena,  owing 
to  its  nature,  escapes  the  control  of  the  will,  exactly  as 


INTRODUCTION  17 

that  which  produces  storms  and  lightning,  and  which, 
in  spite  of  our  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  electricity,  we 
cannot  and  perhaps  never  shall  be  able  to  control  at 
will. 

But  it  might  also  be  otherwise.  In  this  case  it  would 
be  sufficient  to  condense  this  force  artificially  in  order 
to  obtain,  through  the  sole  resources  of  human  organ- 
isms, certain  mechanical,  calorific,  luminous,  electrical 
and  other  effects,  of  which  it  Is  Impossible  to  limit  a 
priori  the  diversity  and  the  power. 
f  Utopia,  you  will  say? 

/  Perhaps!  But  when  GalvanI  studied  the  contrac- 
tions of  the  legs  of  the  frogs  he  had  suspended  from 
/  his  balcony,  who  could  foresee  that  the  force  which 
)  manifested  Itself  under  his  very  eyes,  in  effects  so 
/  puerile,  would  one  day,  in  the  hands  of  man,  circulate 
V  ceaselessly  thought,  light,  and  motion  around  the  globe  ? 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 
THE  FUTURE 

CHAPTER  I 

HOW   THE    PSYCHICAL   SCIENCES   STAND   TO-DAY 

Before  entering  upon  the  many  special  subjects 
which  this  book  will  cover,  it  may  be  well  to  give  a 
general  —  and  as  exact  as  possible  —  idea  of  the  actual 
state  of  the  psychical  sciences  at  the  present  time.  In 
order  to  do  this,  we  must  first  try  to  determine,  on  the 
one  hand,  those  results  that  may  be  considered  as  hav- 
ing been  acquired,  and,  on  the  other,  the  problems  that 
are  still  unsolved,  the  researches  that  still  remain  to  be 
undertaken. 

It  is  this  balance  of  the  psychical  sciences  that  we 
shall  endeavor  to  establish  in  the  present  chapter. 


First  of  all,  by  far  the  most  important  result  —  ob- 
tained little  by  little,  and  not  without  much  struggle 
and  great  effort,  during  the  second  half  of  the  past 
century  —  is  the  recognition  of  the  existence  of  the  psy- 
chical sciences. 

Just  how  far  the  domain  of  psychical  phenomena  ex- 
tends, and  where  in  that  domain  the  field  of  reality 
ends  and  that  of  illusion  begins,  are  questions  that  still 

19 


20    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

are  being  debated,  and  will  continue  to  be  debated  for 
many  years  to  come.  But  there  are  at  least  two  points 
upon  which,  we  believe,  all  those  capable  of  understand- 
ing the  terms  fully  agree : 

First,  the  reality  of  psychical  phenomena,^  constitut- 
ing in  nature  an  order  siii  generis,  undoubtedly  related 
to  the  ensemble  of  psychological  phenomena  but  having 
their  own  particular  characteristics  and  their  own  pe- 
culiar laws. 

Second,  that  these  phenomena  can  and  must  be  ob- 
jects of  science;  and,  as  such,  the  psychical  sciences  are 
legitimate,  as  worthy  of  being  studied  as  are  physical, 
biological,  or  social  sciences. 

Those  who  devote  their  time  and  labor  to  this  study 
are  no  longer  necessarily  considered  as  charlatans  or 
fools.  There  is  in  the  attitude  of  the  public  —  and  par- 
ticularly of  the  scientific  public  —  regarding  psychical 
phenomena  and  the  psychical  sciences,  a  change  that  is 
becoming  more  and  more  pronounced;  and  this  change, 
in  a  more  or  less  distant  future,  will  enable  these  now 
imperfectly  defined  sciences  to  be  definitely  organized. 

All  the  honor  of  this  change,  which  is  nearly  a  revo- 
lution, must  be  credited  to  the  work  of  the  Schools  of 
the  Salpetriere  and  Nancy,  and  to  that  of  the  English 
Society,  and  its  young  sister,  the  American  Society,  for 
Psychical  Research  —  in  a  word,  to  such  men  as  Colo- 
nel de  Rochas  and  Professors  Charles  Richet  and 
Flour  noy. 

The  very  fact  that  the  Academie  des  Sciences  has  ac- 
cepted the  foundation  of  a  prize  ^  destined  to  encour- 

1  Called    occult    by    Grasset,    metapsychic    by    Charles    Richet,    and 
parapsychic  by  Flournoy  and  the  author  of  this  book. 

^Publisher's    Note:     The    Fanny    Emden    Prize.     In    a    competitive 


THE  PSYCHICAL  SCIENCES  TO-DAY     21 

age  psychical  research  concerning  **  suggestion,  hypno- 
tism, and  physiological  actions  likely  to  be  exerted  from 
a  distance  upon  the  human  organism  in  general "  is 
sufficient  to  measure  the  road  traversed  since  the  com- 
paratively recent  time  when  the  same  Academie  refused 
to  receive  any  communication  relative  to  animal  mag- 
netism, relegating  it  to  the  ranks  of  the  fourth  dimen- 
sion and  perpetual  motion.  And  is  it  not  a  significant 
fact  that  such  savants  as  d'Arsonval,  Branly,  and  the 
late  Pierre  Curie  participated  in  the  whole  series  of 
experiments  made  in  1906  with  the  medium  Eusapia 
Palladino  at  the  Instttut  General  Psychologique? 

II 

A  second  result  which  appears  equally  to  have  been 
acquired  is  the  recognition  that  the  only  method  that 
can  adequately  he  applied  to  the  study  of  psychical 
phenomena  is  the  experimental  method^  such  as  that 
used  by  the  precise  and  practical  Claude  Bernard  and 
Pasteur,  with  the  modifications  of  detail  necessary  to 
adapt  it  to  the  particular  conditions  of  this  class  of 
phenomena. 

Nearly  all  scientists  agree  that  it  is  no  longer  a  ques- 
tion of  forming,  a  priori,  systematic  theories  as  to  the 
universal  or  life  fluid,  or  the  constitution  of  matter  or 
of  spirit,  and  from  them  deducing,  without  either  ex- 
periment or  control,  the  explanation  of  more  or  less  ex- 
traordinary facts.     It  is  these  facts  themselves  which 

contest,  two  thousand  francs  of  this  prize  was  awarded  to  Prof.  Boirac 
for  the  best  work  submitted  to  the  Academie  des  Sciences  on  these 
subjects.  His  contribution,  La  Psychologie  inconniie,  was  translated 
into  English  by  Dr.  W.  de  Kerlor,  and  published  in  America  under 
the  title,  Oiir  Hidden  Forces, 


22     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

it  is  necessary  first  of  all  to  verify,  to  observe,  to 
analyze,  to  classify,  and  then  to  submit  to  repeated  and 
varied  experiments  before  patiently  deducing  the  laws 
which  control  them  —  laws  always  subject  to  revision. 
That  the  hypothesis  has  its  place  and  its  role  in  this 
method  is  fully  recognized;  but  under  the  express  con- 
dition that,  suggested  by  phenomena  already  known, 
its  object  is  not  to  give  us  an  ingenious  though  sterile 
explanation,  but  to  help  us  in  the  discovery  of  phe- 
nomena still  unknown,  and  to  enable  us  to  produce 
these  phenomena  by  new  experiments. 

That  which  at  the  present  time  remains  to  be  deter- 
mined, and  which  the  development  of  the  psychical 
sciences  will  gradually  establish,  is  (i)  the  particular 
method  to  be  used  in  the  study  of  these  sciences  —  the 
manner  of  observation  and  of  experimentation  espe- 
cially adapted  to  the  nature  of  the  phenomena  to  be 
studied  —  and  (2)  the  hypotheses  that  will  permit 
experimenters  to  see  their  way  clearly  in  their  re- 
searches and  to  advance  to  the  point  where  they  will 
discover  facts  still  unknown  and  laws  still  unformu- 
lated. 

Ill 

It  is  necessary  to  review  briefly  the  different  branches 
of  the  psychical  sciences  in  order  to  show  the  extent 
of  the  progress  each  has  made.  For  this  purpose  we 
may  use  the  classification  suggested  in  Our  Hidden 
Forces,^  as  it  seems  both  practical  and  convenient. 

^Our  Hidden  Forces  {La  Psychologic  rnconnue),  Emile  Boirac. 
Translated  by  Dr.  W.  de  Kcrlor.  (New  York:  Frederick  A.  Stokes 
Company.) 


THE  PSYCHICAL  SCIENCES  TO-DAY     23 

The  two  Congresses  of  Experimental  Psychology  held 
in  Paris  in  the  years  191 1  and  19 13  adopted  it  in  ar- 
ranging the  program  of  their  work;  and  most  of  the 
terms  comprised  in  it  are  entering  more  and  more 
into  current  usage  among  authors  whose  works  lie  in 
the  field  of  psychical  sciences. 

In  this  classification  the  psychical  phenomena  —  or 
parapsychic,  according  to  the  definition  we  have  given : 
"  the  phenomena  which,  produced  in  animate  beings  or 
as  an  effect  of  their  action,  do  not  seem  to  be  entirely 
explicable  by  the  laws  and  forces  of  nature  already 
known  " —  are  divided  into  three  great  classes,  super- 
imposed one  upon  the  other  in  the  order  of  their  in- 
creasing complexity  and  difficulty,  and  in  such  way  that 
knowledge  of  the  first  is  an  indispensable  condition  and 
an  efficacious  instrument  in  the  study  of  those  that  fol- 
low. 

The  first  of  these  three  classes  is  that  of  hypnoidal 
phenomena.  These  apparently  may  be  explained  by 
forces  already  known,  supposing  only  that  these  forces, 
under  certain  conditions,  operate  according  to  laws  of 
which  we  are  still  ignorant,  or  which  are  known  to  us 
only  imperfectly  —  laws  more  or  less  different  from 
those  which  are  now  known.  To  this  class  belong  the 
phenomena  of  hypnotism  and  suggestion,  especially 
studied  by  the  Schools  of  the  Salpetriere  and  Nancy,  and 
the  phenomena  of  dissociation  of  the  personality  which 
Dr.  Pierre  Janet  submitted  to  a  methodical  investigation 
for  the  first  time  in  his  book,  Automatisme  psycholo- 
giqtte,  and  carried  farther  in  another  work,  Nevroses  et 
idees  fixes.  The  general  term  hypnology  may  be  given 
to  this  first  class  of  phenomena,  thus  reserving  the  term 


24    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

cryptopsychism  ^  for  the  special  study  of  the  phenomena 
of  subconsciousness. 

The  second  class  is  that  of  magnetoidal  phenomena. 
These  appear  to  involve  the  intervention  of  forces  still 
unknown,  distinct  from  those  that  science  has  so  far 
discovered  and  studied,  but  of  a  physical  nature  and 
more  or  less  analogous  to  the  radiating  forces  of 
physics:  light,  heat,  electricity,  magnetism,  etc.  In 
this  class  there  are  three  distinct  groups  of  phenomena, 
which  nevertheless  are  imperceptibly  related  to  one  an- 
other.    They  are : 

(i)  Animal  magnetism;  or,  as  the  English  aptly 
call  it,  mesmerism. 

(2)  Telepsychic  phenomena,  comprising  numerous 
varieties,  such  as  the  transmission  or  penetration  of 
thought,  the  exteriorization  of  the  sensitiveness,  psy- 
chometry,  telepathy,  clairvoyance  or  lucidity,  etc. 

(3)  Hyloscopic  phenomena,  where  physical  mat- 
ter appears  to  exert  over  animate  beings,  especially 
human  beings,  an  action  that  does  not  seem  to  be  ex- 
plicable by  any  physical  or  chemical  properties  already 
known  and  that  seems,  consequently,  to  reveal  in  it  a 
force  irreducible  to  any  that  science  has  studied  up  to 
the  present  time.  To  this  third  group  of  magnetoidal 
phenomena  belong  the  effects  obtained  by  seekers  of 
subterranean  sources  of  water  and  metals,  as  demon- 
strated by  the  rod-  and  pendulum-diviners  who  so 
strongly  aroused  public  interest  during  the  Congress 
of  Experimental  Psychology  held  in  Paris  in  19 13. 

The  third  and  last  class  is  that  of  spiritoidal  phe- 

*This  term  has  been  adopted  by  Prof.  Flournoy  in  his  book,  Esprits 
et  mediums. 


THE  PSYCHICAL  SCIENCES  TO-DAY     25 

nomena.  These  also  seem  to  imply  the  hypothesis  of 
agents  as  yet  unknown ;  but  in  this  case  they  are  agents 
of  a  psychological  nature,  more  or  less  analogous  to 
human  intelligence,  situated,  perhaps,  outside  of  our 
ordinary  world,  in  a  plane  of  reality  exterior  to  that  in 
which  we  live.  This  class  embraces  all  the  phenomena 
of  spiritism  or  mediumism  when  it  does  not  seem  that 
they  may  properly  be  included  in  either  of  the  preceding 
classes  —  disregarding,  of  course,  the  dogmatic  asser- 
tion as  to  their  real  causes. 

It  is  in  the  psychical  sciences  of  the  first  degree,  hyp- 
nology  and  cryptopsychism,  that  we  find  the  greatest 
number  of  results  acquired  —  results  that  now  are  in- 
contestably  established.  In  this  field  we  are  on  nearly 
firm  ground.  More  than  one  question  of  detail  still 
remains  obscure  and  uncertain,  but  it  can  be  said  that, 
on  broad  lines  at  least,  these  sciences  are  definitely  con- 
stituted. 

In  spite  of  a  few  isolated  cases  of  the  old  skepticism,*^ 
there  exists  no  doubt  as  to  the  fact  that  a  human,  being 
may,  under  certain  conditions,  sink  into  a  particular 
state  of  torpor  and  automatism,  where  certain  of  his 
faculties  are  more  or  less  annihilated  while  others  are 
singularly  exalted,  and  that  the  characteristics  of  this 
state,  called  hypnotic,  are  more  or  less  variable,  and 
are  known  as  catalepsy,  lethargy,  somnambulism,  etc. 
There  exists  no  doubt  that  suggestion  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  human  word,  or,  to  go  back  to  Its  origin,  the 
thought,  as  a  species  of  imagination  and  faith  —  can 
exercise  a  quasi-magical  action  upon  not  only  the  facul- 
ties of  our  moral  being,  but  also  the  functions  of  our 

5  Prof.  Babinski,  for  instance,  declares  that  it  is  impossible  to  know 
if  hypnosis  is  not  always  a  case  of  simulation. 


26     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

organism.  Nor  can  there  exist  any  doubt  that  such 
action  is  able,  without  our  knowledge,  to  produce  in 
us  beneath  our  conscious  personality  another  person- 
ality that  is  still  ourselves  yet  appears  to  be  some  one 
else :  a  personality  that  feels,  thinks,  and  acts,  entirely 
without  our  being  conscious  of  it  except  for  its  exterior 
manifestations. 

All  these  points  are  firmly  and  incontestably  estab- 
lished. There  now  remains  the  necessity  for  knowing 
more  precisely  the  determining  conditions  of  the  dif- 
ferent phenomena,  the  study  of  their  effects,  the  prac- 
tical applications  that  may  be  drawn  from  them. 

In  passing  to  the  psychical  sciences  of  the  second  class 
—  magnetoidal  phenomena  —  we  enter  a  region  little 
explored  by  scientists,  who  have  been  unwilling  to  risk 
themselves  there,  for  fear  of  compromising  their  pro- 
fessional dignity  or  their  reputation  as  prudent  and 
serious  persons.  The  number  of  results  acquired  in 
this  class,  therefore,  is  much  less  considerable  than  in 
the  preceding  class.  Here  all  is  more  or  less  doubtful, 
or  at  least  invariably  contested.  The  facts  are  either 
denied  or  Ignored,  or  else  they  are  treated  as  effects  of 
the  imagination,  or  attributed  to  fraud.  In  the  most 
favorable  hypothesis  they  are  credited  to  will,  or  to 
some  force  that,  temporarily,  it  is  impossible  to  analyze 
from  facts  of  the  first  class. 

It  well  seems,  however,  that  the  day  may  not  be 
very  far  off  when  science  will  end  by  recognizing  the 
existence  of  a  force  emanating  from  the  human  organ- 
ism, really  of  the  nerves  and  of  the  brain,  and  capable 
of  acting  at  a  distance.     That  force  is  now  almost  uni- 


THE  PSYCHICAL  SCIENCES  TO-DAY     27 

versally  admitted  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  trans- 
mission of  thought  and  telepathy. 

Owing  to  a  frequent  confusion  of  terms,  due  to  their 
similarity,  suggestiotiy  which  is  no  longer  contested, 
permits  us  to  admit  the  phenomenon  of  transmission  of 
thought  christened  mental  suggestion.  And  this  latter 
apparently  does  not  differ  essentially  from  the  other, 
in  that  it  implies,  above  all,  an  influence  exerted  by  one 
brain  upon  another  through  a  field  imperceptible  to  our 
senses.  Strange  to  say,  however,  animal  magnetism, 
which  seems  to  be  the  more  general  phenomenon  —  the 
condition  for  mental  suggestion  —  is  denied  its  right 
of  existence,  when  mental  suggestion  is  but  one  of  its 
particular  consequences. 

But  sooner  or  later,  no  doubt,  when  logic  recovers 
its  right,  it  will  be  recognized  that  animal  magnetism 
conceals  in  reality  the  key  to  psychical  phenomena  under 
all  their  forms.  This  is  one  of  the  truths  that  we  espe- 
cially endeavored  to  establish  in  Our  Hidden  Forces; 
and  we  hope  that  our  example  may  encourage  other 
researchers  to  labor  in  this  field,  so  that  there  may  be 
acquired  to  science  one  more  definite  result. 

The  recent  scientific  discovery  of  X-rays  and  of 
emanations  from  radium  has  disposed  savants  to  admit 
more  easily  the  existence  in  nature  of  a  multitude  of 
radiations  and  influences  too  subtle  to  be  observed  or- 
dinarily by  our  senses;  and  it  is  perhaps  this  which  ex- 
plains the  reception  —  rather  than  the  encouragement 
—  given  by  the  scientific  world  to  the  recent  experiments 
of  water-diviners. 

There,  too,  a  result  seems  to  have  been  acquired. 


28    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

However,  it  has  not  been  definitely  decided  that  the 
movements  of  the  divining-rod  or  of  the  pendulum  are 
caused,  as  Chevreul  claimed,  solely  by  the  unconscious 
thought  of  the  operator,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  objective 
influences.  And  one  is  not  obliged  to  believe  that  such 
thought  is  not  under  some  secret  influence  of  an  un- 
known though  real  force. 

Hyloscopy  now  is  merely  at  the  threshold  of  science; 
but  it  will  not  be  long  before  it  will  have  crossed  over. 

The  phenomenon  of  clairvoyance,  whose  mysterious 
mechanism  passes  all  human  understanding,  occupies, 
as  it  were,  the  middle  position  between  hyloscopy  and 
telepsychism,  since  it  supposes  an  action  exerted  by 
objects,  in  spite  of  sometimes  enormous  distances,  upon 
the  sensibility  of  the  subject;  and  in  the  same  subject  a 
faculty  of  perception  susceptible  of  being  brought  into 
play  by  this  remote  and  Incomprehensible  action. 

Science  is  far  from  admitting  the  reality  of  this  phe- 
nomenon, but  it  is  beginning  to  submit  it  to  scientific 
study;  and  such  works  as  those  of  Edmond  Duchatel 
on  Psychometry  and  Dr.  Osty  on  Lucidity  and  Intuition 
undoubtedly  hasten  the  moment  when  the  phenomenon, 
being  recognized  as  real,  will  enable  us  to  discover 
experimentally  the  laws  that  regulate  it. 

At  the  present  time  we  may  see  in  those  who  study  the 
phenomenon  of  clairvoyance  a  tendency  to  place  it  on 
the  same  level  as  that  of  penetration  of  thought  —  that 
is  to  say,  to  believe  that  the  visions  of  clairvoyants 
are  not  connected  directly  with  the  objects  themselves 
but  with  the  human  brains  in  which  the  objects  are  rep- 
resented. In  other  words,  clairvoyance  might  be 
essentially  not  a  rapport  of  hrain  with  object,  but  a  rap- 


THE  PENDULUiM 

Any  one  susceptible  to  magnetic  influence  will  follow,  involun- 
tarily, the  movements  of  the  operator's  hand,  even  when  it  is  not 
in  contact  with  the  shoulder. 


c    e)0  m  »        c 


THE  PSYCHICAL  SCIENCES  TO-DAY     29 

port  of  brain  with  brain.  Thus  would  be  effaced  the 
distinction  which  early  magnetizers  established  between 
real  clairvoyance  or  lucidity  and  the  transmission  of 
thought. 

It  is  left  to  future  researches  to  solve  the  question 
definitely  and  finally. 

There  remains  the  science  of  the  third  class,  which 
has  for  its  object  the  troublesome  and  baffling  phe- 
nomena of  spiritism.  The  farther  we  advance  in  our 
inquiries  in  this  field,  the  more  rare  become  the  results 
acquired.  Let  us  not  believe,  however,  with  the  or- 
dinary public,  that  these  phenomena  have  nothing  of 
truth  in  them.  For  it  is  certain,  it  has  been  proved  be- 
yond all  doubt,  that  tables  turn  and  rap,  that  they  make, 
by  means  of  certain  codes,  intelligible  answers  to  ques- 
tions that  are  asked  them.     And  it  is  incontestably 

1  proved  that  certain  individuals,  called  mediums,  do 

J  write,  speak,  and  act,  without  being  conscious  of  what 
they  are  doing,  exactly  as  if  they  were  the  instruments 
of  foreign  personalities.     All  these  facts  are  amply 

|estabhshed;  it  is  only  the  ignorant  who  deny  them. 

1  Now,  to  what  cause  must  they  be  attributed?  Are 
they,  as  their  appearances  suggest,  as  the  mediums  in- 
sist, the  effects  and  the  proofs  of  the  intervention  of 
spirits?  Is  it  really  the  souls  of  the  dead  who  come 
from  the  other  world  to  cause  the  tables  to  move  and 
who  inhabit  momentarily  the  bodies  of  the  living? 
"^  In  this  there  is  a  wholly  different  problem. 

That  which  is  acquired  is  the  reality  of  the  spiritoidal 
phenomena,  at  least  of  a  certain  number  of  them ;  that 
which  is  far  from  being  acquired  in  the  manner  in  which 
they  may  be  explained. 


30     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

To  admit  these  phenomena  does  not  necessarily  mean 
admitting  such  or  such  explanation  that  may  be  pro- 
posed. From  the  viewpoint  of  the  scientist,  the  ex- 
planation, whatever  it  may  be,  is  of  secondary  import- 
ance; the  essential  thing  is  the  methodical  study  of  the 
facts,  their  establishment  and  their  analysis.  To  prove 
or  to  refute  a  certain  philosophic  or  religious  doctrine 
is  not  sufficient;  it  is  necessary  to  know  whether  certain 
facts  actually  occur,  and,  if  so,  how  they  occur. 

The  most  important  results  will  be  acquired  in  re- 
searches of  this  order  only  when  all  those  whose  ex- 
periments lie  In  this  field  are  persuaded  that  it  is  with 
that  attitude  of  mind  that  they  must  labor.  The  ex- 
perimental method  only,  loyally  and  patiently  practised, 
will  enable  the  researcher  to  ascertain  If  certain  phe- 
nomena generally  considered  unbelievable  —  levitatlon, 
apports,  materialization  —  are  actually  real  or  if  they 
are  but  "  tricks  "  and  fraud.  This  method  alone  will 
permit  him  to  arrive  at  Interpretations  —  tentative 
without  doubt  and  hypothetical,  but  useful  nevertheless 
to  guide  the  experimenter  through  obscurities  more  Im- 
penetrable than  those  of  the  forest  of  Dante's  Inferno. 

IV 

However  imperfect  may  be  the  actual  state  of  the 
psychical  sciences  at  the  present  time,  this  brief  review 
shows  that  they  are  sufficiently  organized  to  live  and  to 
be  developed  regularly;  that  experimenters  may  be 
assured  of  the  reality  of  their  object,  each  being  In 
the  firm  possession  of  his  method,  a  certain  number  of 
essential  results  already  having  been  acquired. 

What  is  it  that  is  necessary  for  the  hastening  of  their 


THE  PSYCHICAL  SCIENCES  TO-DAY     31 

evolution,  that  the  number  of  results  may  be  increased 
steadily  from  day  to  day? 

First  of  all,  that  public  opinion,  better  informed,  may 
understand  the  interest  and  the  utility  of  the  researches 
and  may  become  accustomed  to  considering  them  as 
real  sciences,  and  not  as  playthings,  oracles,  or  pastimes 
for  society.  No  less  important  is  the  necessity  for 
establishing  "  numerous  centers  of  research  through- 
out the  civilized  world  —  institutes  and  laboratories 
where  researchers  who  are  specially  trained  into  scien- 
tific and  philosophical  discipline,  and  accorded  the 
same  respect  by  other  scientists  as  is  given  to  physicians, 
chemists,  and  physiologists,  could  devote  themselves  ex- 
clusively to  the  exploration  of  the  psychical  field  in  its 
widest  sense,  and  where  they  could  check  each  other 
constantly."  ^ 

*  Our  Hidden  Forces, 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   RIGHT  AND  THE   WRONG  METHODS 

The  question  of  the  method  to  be  adopted  in  the 
study  of  the  psychical  sciences  is  of  great  importance 
when  considering  that  at  the  present  time  these  sciences 
are  still  in  the  form  of  an  enormous  mass  of  infinitely 
diverse,  complex,  mysterious,  sometimes  contradictory, 
facts,  regarding  which  there  arise  the  most  enigmatic 
problems. 

Is  it  possible  to  establish  order  in  all  this  confusion? 
If  so,  let  us  see  how. 


One  fact  imposes  itself  upon  our  attention.  The 
different  phenomena  comprised  in  the  psychical  sciences 
are  divided  naturally  into  groups  sufficiently  distinct 
that  each  of  these  groups  can  and  should  become  a 
special  science  in  itself.  Yet  they  have  in  common  such 
important  characteristics,  and  they  are  connected  by 
relations  so  numerous  and  so  closely  woven,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  study  them  satisfactorily  if  we  do  not 
take  into  account  their  deep  affinities  and  their  intimate 
solidarity.  It  is  because  of  having  disregarded  this 
twofold  circumstance  that  the  greater  part  of  the  re- 
searchers have  hitherto  erred  au  hasard  or  their 
methods  have  remained  unimproved. 

In  the  prescientific  epoch  of  their  history,  the  psy- 

32 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  METHODS       33 

chical  sciences  were  found,  pell-mell  with  astrology, 
alchemy,  and  magic,  in  the  obscure  chaos  of  occultism; 
and  this  state  of  confusion  began  to  be  cleared  up  only 
toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  Mes- 
mer  and  his  disciples  aroused  public  curiosity  about  the 
phenomena  of  animal  magnetism  which  they  produced. 

It  is  then  that  analysis  was  introduced  into  the  study 
of  psychical  facts,  and  it  resulted,  at  one  and  the  same 
time,  in  the  necessary  precisions  and  the  inevitable  con- 
tradictions. 

Braid  recognized  the  reality  of  a  certain  state  of  the 
nervous  system  provoked  by  physical  actions  —  such 
as  the  prolonged  fixation  of  gaze  upon  a  brilliant  point 
—  and  he  fully  described  the  principal  effects.  How- 
ever, outside  of  hypnotism  thus  defined,  he  did  not  ad- 
mit as  real  anything  more  from  among  all  the  strange 
and  wonderful  facts  reported  by  the  early  observers. 
The  School  of  the  Salpetriere  confined  its  doctrine 
within  these  same  limits.  And  so,  also,  similar  to 
Abbe  Faria  and  General  Noiset,  the  School  of  Nancy, 
with  Liebeault,  Liegeois,  and  Bernheim,  studied  the 
power  of  thought  and  idea,  allied  to  belief  and  emotion, 
upon  the  mind  and  the  human  organism,  and  proclaimed 
that  suggestion  is  in  itself  *'  the  key  to  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  hypnosis."  All  so-called  psychical  facts, 
when  real,  are  caused  by  suggestion;  all  facts  not  so 
caused  are  purely  imaginary. 

Thus,  under  the  exclusive  influence  of  analysis,  each 
searcher  specializes  in  the  study  of  a  certain  order  of 
phenomena,  and  systematically  ignores  or  denies  all 
those  that  may  exist  outside  of  his  own  field  of  study 
and  experimentation.     The  same  narrowness  is  shown 


34     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

by  the  disciples  of  Mesmer,  who,  for  the  greater  part, 
refused  to  recognize  hypnotism  and  suggestion  as  being 
side  by  side  with  and  quite  distinct  from  animal  mag- 
netism. 

With  the  study  of  spiritistic  phenomena  and  those  oi 
mental  suggestion  and  telepathy,  two  new  branches  of 
researches  spring  from  the  main  trunk  of  psychism. 
But  here  still  we  find  the  same  tendency  to  believe  that 
each  of  these  studies  can  suffice  entirely  in  itself,  and 
constitute  alone  the  totality  of  the  psychical  sciences. 

The  true  method  is  to  give  to  analysis  and  to  syn- 
thesis the  part  that  legitimately  belongs  to  each  of  them. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  multitude  of 
psychical  phenomena  be  divided  into  a  certain  number 
of  groups,  and  that  these  groups  be  studied  separately. 
For  the  human  mind,  study  is  not  possible,  science  is  not 
possible,  without  division,  order,  classification.  An- 
alysis is  in  itself  the  very  condition  of  synthesis;  every 
synthesis  that  is  not  preceded  by  analysis  is  necessarily 
confused.  That  is  why,  in  Our  Hidden  Forces,  we 
were  compelled  to  classify  the  different  psychical 
sciences  according  to  three  great  divisions :  hypnoidal, 
magnetoidal,  and  spiritoidal.  And  under  these  heads 
we  arranged  the  different  groups  of  phenomena  cov- 
ered by  them,  giving  to  each  a  special  name  —  hypnol- 
ogy,  cryptopsychism,  psychodynamy,  telepsychism,  hy- 
loscopy,  etc. —  thus  recognizing,  as  it  were,  their  dis- 
tinct individuality. 

But  any  such  classification,  in  drawing  the  many  and 
varied  psychical  sciences  together  into  unity,  compels 
the  mind  to  consider  them  as  necessarily  coordinated 
among  themselves.     They  are  independent,  though  at 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  METHODS       35 

the  same  time  solidary,  parts  of  one  and  the  same 
whole. 

Therefore,  in  the  pursuit  of  any  one  of  these  partic- 
ular sciences  —  for  example,  hypnotism  or  suggestion 
—  it  may  be  well,  in  order  to  advance  the  analysis  as 
far  as  possible,  to  consider  the  psychical  facts  from  a 
certain  angle  only,  disregarding  all  the  facts  and  all 
the  elements  of  facts  that  are  not  visible  from  that 
angle.  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  this 
is  but  an  artifice  of  the  method;  that,  if  one's  special 
branch  of  pursuit  succeeds  in  realizing,  in  its  concep- 
tions or  in  its  experimentations,  that  isolation  of  one  of 
the  essential  elements  of  psychism,  it  does  not  follow 
that  in  reality  that  element  may  not  often  be  inseparably 
united  to  other  elements  equally  essential,  objects  of 
some  other  branch  of  science. 

Thus  the  point  of  view  of  the  synthesis  must  always, 
in  psychical  sciences,  complete  and  correct  the  point  of 
view  of  the  analysis. 

II 

However,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  although  the 
different  psychical  sciences  are  connected  with  and  de- 
pendent upon  one  another,  they  are  not  all  on  the 
same  plane.  There  exists  between  them  a  certain 
order,  a  certain  hierarchy  of  connections  and  dependen- 
cies. Thus  the  simplest,  the  most  elementary  phenom- 
ena, the  easiest  to  isolate  and  to  reproduce  experiment- 
ally, come  logically  first,  before  those  that  are  on  a 
higher  plane,  that  are  more  complex,  more  difficultly 
controlled  by  the  experimenter,  and  consequently  are 
relatively  more  independent. 


36    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

This  is,  we  believe,  a  point  of  extreme  importance, 
one  upon  which  it  is  necessary  to  insist. 

It  determines  the  general  direction  of  the  method  in 
psychical  research,  if  it  be  true  that  the  human  brain 
must,  according  to  the  precept  of  Descartes,  "  conduct 
one's  thoughts  in  order,  by  beginning  with  the  simplest 
and  the  most  easily  understood  objects  and  climbing 
little  by  little,  by  degrees  as  it  were,  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  most  complex.  .  .  ." 

Let  us  apply  this  particular  rule  to  the  study  of  the 
psychical  sciences.  The  result  is  that  the  science  of 
hypnoidal  phenomena  must  be  considered  as  the  pre- 
liminary condition  of  the  study  of  magnetoidal  phe- 
nomena; and  that  these  two  must  be  advanced  suffi- 
ciently far  before  it  will  be  possible  to  begin,  with  any 
hope  of  success,  the  scientific  exploration  of  spiritoidal 
phenomena. 

Up  to  the  present  time  those  savants  who  have  ven- 
tured into  this  field  have  attempted  to  study  only  the 
most  extraordinary  phenomena,  those  that  most  excite 
the  curiosity  and  stir  the  imagination:  in  other  words, 
the  spiritoidal  phenomena  which  assume  the  strangest 
forms,  such  as  are  reported  by  William  Crookes,  de 
Rochas,  Richet,  etc.  In  a  similar  way,  in  studying  the 
phenomena  of  telepathy  —  of  which  the  English  and 
American  Societies  for  Psychical  Research  have  col- 
lected numerous  examples  —  the  savants  have  confined 
themselves  to  those  magnetoidal  phenomena  in  which 
the  mechanism  is  the  most  obscure  and  the  most  com- 
plex. 

Is  not  such  a  method  directly  contrary  to  the  principle 
that  we  have  laid  down? 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  METHODS       37 

But  that  principle  has  already  been  contested.  Dr. 
Gustave  Geley,  in  a  remarkable  study  on  "  a  special 
experimental  method  in  metapsychism,"  after  having 
remarked,  with  ourselves,  that  *'  all  the  metapsychic 
phenomena,  from  the  simplest  and  most  elementary  to 
the  highest  and  most  complex,  are  absolutely  con- 
nected," affirms  that  "  the  scientific  method,  fully  ade- 
quate to  the  new  science,  resides  entirely  in  this  for- 
mula: to  consider  as  temporarily  negligible  all  the 
elementary  phenomena  and  to  attack  immediately  and 
systematically  the  most  complex  phenomena  that  are 
known  to  us**  He  is  fully  aware  that  "  such  a 
methodological  principle  is  revolutionary."  It  con- 
flicts, he  says,  with  the  teachings  of  the  most  eminent 
psychists.  "  It  breaks  away  from  the  standard,  classi- 
cal method,  admitted  by  all  the  other  sciences,  in  which 
it  is  necessary  always  to  proceed  from  the  known  to 
the  unknown  and  from  the  simple  to  the  complex." 

But  this  savant  does  not  stop  there ;  for,  according  to 
him,  "  in  metapsychism  the  simplest  is  found  to  be  the 
most  difficult  to  recognize."  Consequently,  it  is  by 
the  study  of  physical  phenomena,  in  preference  to  fw- 
tellectual,  that  we  are  asked  to  begin  the  systematic  in- 
vestigation of  metapsychism.  And  from  among  the 
physical  phenomena,  that  of  materialization  should  be 
the  first. 

It  is  apparent  that  this  author  understands  by  "  met- 
apsychism "  not  the  ensemble  of  the  psychical  phe- 
nomena (or  parapsychic,  to  use  our  own  term)  — with 
its  three  relatively  distinct  branches  and  the  whole  in- 
separably connected  and  hierarchically  superposed  — 
but  exclusively  a  section  of  that  ensemble,  the  third  and 


38     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

last,  the  spiritoidal  phenomena,  commonly  called  spir- 
itism. 

If  the  word  psychical  be  kept  to  designate,  as  usage 
has  established  it,  all  phenomena  whatsover  of  the 
unknown  in  psychology,  it  will  enable  us  to  distinguish, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  phenomena  properly  called  para- 
psychic,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  metapsychic  phe- 
nomena, which  it  seems  very  difficult  to  strip  of  their 
supernatural  or  extra-natural  appearances. 

It  is  not  a  question,  therefore,  with  this  author,  of 
the  general  method  of  parapsychism,  including  at  the 
same  time  parapsychism  properly  called  and  meta- 
psychism,  but  uniquely,  exclusively,  of  the  special 
method  of  metapsychism,  which  he  seems  to  consider 
as  absolutely  independent,  separable  by  right  and  in 
fact  from  the  rest  of  parapsychism;  susceptible  conse- 
quently to  be  approached  de  piano,  without  previous  re- 
course to  the  study  of  the  antecedent  disciplines. 

We  should  not  be  willing,  on  our  part,  to  admit  any 
such  viewpoint. 

As  we  shall  show  later  in  detail,  when  considered  in 
themselves,  all  hypotheses  as  to  their  origin  being  dis- 
regarded, the  metapsychic  (or  spiritoidal)  phenomena 
do  not  differ  essentially  from  the  others:  there  can 
always  be  found  in  each  of  them  a  correspondent  of 
the  same  kind  in  the  series  of  phenomena  that  are 
really  parapsychic  (hypnoidal  and  magnetoidal). 
Thus  the  state  of  trance  of  a  medium  is  a  fact  wholly 
analogous  to  the  state  of  hypnosis  of  a  subject  placed 
in  catalepsy  or  somnambulism;  the  spiritistic  messages 
obtained  by  means  of  the  table,  automatic  writing,  etc., 
singularly  resemble  the  facts  of  dissociation  of  the 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  METHODS       39 

personality  experimentally  provoked;  the  phenomena  of 
thought-reading  or  of  clairvoyance,  frequently  men- 
tioned in  the  reports  of  spiritistic  seances,  are  analogous 
to  those  of  perceptive  telepsychism  or  of  psychometry, 
observed  outside  of  all  spiritistic  ambient,  etc.^ 

Spiritism  thus  appears,  as  we  have  said,  a  "  spon- 
taneous synthesis  of  all  or  nearly  all  the  parapsychic 
facts  determined  by  a  certain  nervous  and  mental  state  " 
—  to  which  perhaps  may  be  given,  with  Professor 
Flournoy,  the  name  spiritogene.  This  is  why  science, 
faithful  to  the  principle  of  economy,  prefers,  until 
the  contrary  be  proved,  to  consider  spiritoidal  (or 
metapsychic)  facts  as  reducible  to  facts  of  the  preced- 
ing orders,  or  at  least  attempts  that  reduction  as  far 
as  possible. 

Even  if  admitting  the  hypothesis  of  spirits  and  their 
effective  participation  in  the  production  of  spiritoidal 
phenomena,  it  is  necessary  to  note  that  "  the  whole 
action  of  these  spirits  consists  in  arousing  in  certain 
susceptible  subjects  (mediums)  the  greater  part  of  the 
hypnoidal  and  magnetoidal  phenomena  (hypnotism, 
suggestion,  dissociation  of  the  personality,  telepathy, 
clairvoyance,  etc.)  constated  in  ordinary  subjects,  either 
spontaneously  or  as  the  effect  of  the  experimenter's 
action.  It  can  be  said  that  spirits  operate  exactly  as 
do  hypnotists  and  mesmerists." 

Is  it  not  right,  then,  to  conclude  that  "  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  method,  the  study  of  spiritoidal  phe- 

1  For  this  reason  we  cannot  well  agree  with  Dr.  Geley  that  the 
study  of  the  "  supernormal  and  subconscious  faculties  of  vision  at  a 
distance  without  the  aid  of  the  senses,  of  telepathy,  of  thought-reading, 
of  lucidity,"  appe^*tains  essentially  to  metapsychism.  Its  place  seems 
to  us  to  be  incontestably  marked  in  parapsychism  properly  called. 


40    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

nomena  must  be  strictly  subordinated  to  that  of  phe- 
nomena of  the  two  preceding  orders,  and  that  it  is 
only  when  these  have  been  advanced  sufficiently  far 
that  the  experimenter  can  begin  to  see  his  way  a  little 
more  clearly  in  the  study  of  the  third  order  " —  in 
other  words,  that  parapsychism  is  the  necessary  intro- 
duction, the  inevitable  pathway  to  metapsychism? 

Hence,  to  begin  the  study  of  the  ensemble  of  para- 
psychic  phenomena,  or  metapsychic,  by  attacking  first 
and  exclusively  a  phenomenon  as  complex  and  as  diffi- 
cult to  manage  as  that  of  materialization,  seems  to 
us  to  be  comparable  to  physicists  who  would  regret  that 
the  study  of  electricity  or  of  physics  in  general  had  not 
begun  with  the  study  of  globe  lightning — a  problem 
certainly  highly  interesting,  but  the  solution  of  which 
will  be  found  only  In  a  more  or  less  distant  future,  and 
because  of  the  increasing  extent  of  our  knowledge  in 
electricity  and  other  branches  of  physics. 


CHAPTER  III 

OBSERVATION,   THE   FIRST   STEP 
I 

It  is  not  enough  to  show  the  general  direction  of  the 
method  in  the  psychical  sciences ;  it  is  necessary  also  to 
determine  the  nature  and  the  rapports  of  the  different 
processes  of  which  the  method  is  composed. 

Whatever  may  be  the  particular  nature  of  the  facts 
under  study,  all  sciences  based  upon  facts  are  necessarily 
and  exclusively  amenable  to  the  experimental  method. 
Those  —  as  certain  theosophists  or  certain  occultists  — 
who  would  pretend  to  build  up  the  science  of  psychical 
facts  upon  the  foundation  of  authority  or  of  reasoning 
would  succeed  only  in  excluding  psychical  facts  from 
science. 

The  experimental  method,  as  we  have  shown  else- 
where,^ consists  essentially  of  four  processes,  disposed 
in  the  following  order: 

(i)  Observation 

(2)  Hypothesis 

(3)  Experimentation 

(4)  Induction 

The  order  has  in  this  case  such  great  importance  that 
if,  keeping  the  same  elements,  we  dispose  them  in  any 

^Our  Hidden  Forces, 

41 


42     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

other  manner,  the  ensemble  obtained  is  not  the  experi- 
mental method,  but  a  method  wholly  different. 

Thus  observation  in  the  experimental  method  has 
but  one  aim  —  to  make  possible  the  hypothesis ;  the 
hypothesis  has  but  one  aim  —  to  make  possible  the 
experimentation;  just  as  the  experimentation  has  but 
one  aim  —  to  make  possible  the  induction.  From  ob- 
servation to  supposition;  from  supposition  to  experi- 
mentation; from  experimentation  to  induction  —  that 
is  the  succession,  the  necessary  subordination  of  the 
proceedings  in  the  experimental  method. 

Of  these  four  operations,  the  first  and  the  third  — 
observation  and  experimentation  —  are  processes  of 
information,  of  constatation  of  the  particular  facts. 
The  second  and  the  fourth  —  hypothesis  and  induc- 
tion —  are  processes  of  interpretation,  of  reasoning  re- 
lating to  general  laws.  The  originality  of  the  experi- 
mental method  consists  in  the  fact  that  it  counterchecks 
the  two  kinds  of  operations  in  such  a  way  that  they 
provoke  and  complete  or  control  each  other. 

The  entire  method  can  be  summarized  in  the  fol- 
lowing formula : 

First  period:     Preparatory  constatation   (obser- 
vation). 
Second  period:     Temporary  interpretation    (hy- 
pothesis) . 
Third    period:     Decisive    constatation     (experi- 
mentation). 
Fourth  period:     Definitive  interpretation  (induc- 
tion ) . 
It  IS  by  the  persevering  and  scrupulous  application  of 
the  experimental  method,  as  it  is  thus  comprised,  that 


OBSERVATION,  THE  FIRST  STEP      43 

the  study  of  psychical  phenomena  will  be  progressively 
transformed  into  a  real  science. 

But  the  processes  of  this  method,  owing  to  the  pecu- 
liar conditions  in  which  psychical  phenomena  present 
themselves,  assume  in  their  study  particular  character- 
istics which  it  is  important  to  note. 

II 

In  natural  science  —  physics,  chemistry,  physiology, 
etc. —  observation  is  made  or  can  always  be  made  di- 
rectly: the  savants  themselves,  by  means  of  their  own 
senses,  constate  the  phenomena  they  study.  In  psychi- 
cal sciences  the  observation  is  often  indirect  and  medi- 
ate, owing  to  the  fact  that  scientists  know  of  the  nature 
of  the  phenomena  only  through  the  testimony  of  un- 
scientific observers  —  persons  not  trained  in  science  — 
who  witnessed  them  by  chance  and  described  them, 
orally  or  in  writing. 

This  manner  of  observation  by  testimony  is  not  con- 
fined exclusively  to  psychical  sciences;  it  is  found  in  all 
the  moral  and  social  sciences,  in  all  sciences  which  have 
man  for  their  object.  It  is  the  indispensable  instru- 
ment of  history,  where  these  sciences  find  their  principal 
support.  As  a  result,  psychical  sciences  partake  at  the 
same  time  of  the  nature  of  physical  sciences  and  of  that 
of  moral  sciences;  and  this,  perhaps,  as  Prof.  Bergson 
aptly  showed  in  his  masterly  address  of  May  28,  1913,^ 
is  one  of  the  reasons  why  many  savants  —  who  con- 
ceive all  sciences  as  in  the  light  of  natural  sciences  only 

^  Annales  des  sciences  psychiques  (November  and  December,  1913). 
Address  delivered  by  Prof.  Bergson  at  the  time  of  his  election  to  the 
presidency  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  of  London. 


44    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

—  refuse  "  to  consider  as  real,  certain  facts  that  can  be 
known  only  through  a  method  of  observation  founded 
upon  testimony,  too  similar  to  the  historical  method  or 
to  that  of  a  magistrate  gathering  testimony." 

Yet  in  natural  science  there  are  a  great  number  of 
facts  that  can  be  known  by  this  method  only:  for  in- 
stance, the  rare  and  accidental  facts  in  astronomy  and 
pathology,  such  as  the  falling  of  meteorites,  diseases 
peculiar  to  certain  climates  or  observed  in  a  small  num- 
ber of  individuals,  etc. 

It  is  true  that  in  such  sciences  we  take  into  account 
only  observations  reported  by  witnesses  who  can  be  con- 
sidered as  scientists;  but  we  should  singularly  restrict 
the  means  of  obtaining  information  for  the  psychical 
sciences  were  we  to  reject,  even  for  the  sake  of  inven- 
tory, all  observation  presented  by  non-professionals. 
Where,  moreover,  does  the  category  of  people  accept- 
able for  testimony  begin  and  where  does  it  end? 
Should  we,  for  Instance,  reject  wholly  and  without  ex- 
amination all  the  accounts  in  which  the  early  magneti- 
zers  —  de  Puysegur,  Deleuze,  Lafontaine,  du  Potet, 
etc. —  report  the  facts  observed  by  them,  under  the 
pretext  that  none  of  them  was  a  professional  scientist 
and  that  the  Interpretation  that  they  proposed  does  not 
seem  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  Ideas  held  In  the 
sciences  of  to-day?  Should  we  grant  the  quality  of 
scientist  to  naturalists,  to  physicians,  to  physicists,  to 
chemists,  to  physiologists  —  such  as  Antoine  Laurent 
de  Jussleu,  Dr.  Husson,  Relchenbach,  W.  Gregory, 
Charles  Richet,  W.  Crookes,  Oliver  Lodge,  etc. —  and 
consent  to  give  credit  to  their  testimony  when  they  tell 
us  of  facts  which  they  affirm  that  they  themselves  con- 


OBSERVATION,  THE  FIRST  STEP      45 

stated  and  controlled?  If  we  were  to  answer  In  the 
negative,  how  could  we  justify  such  Intransigence? 

The  psychical  sciences  are  perfectly  In  their  right 
In  seeking  In  Indirect  observation  the  first  elements  of 
their  study;  providing,  of  course,  that  the  Information 
thus  gathered  be  submitted  to  the  most  severe  criticism 
(as  has  been  done,  for  Instance,  by  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  with  telepathic  facts).  Then  they 
should  be  completed  and  controlled  as  far  as  possible  by 
direct  observation,  especially  by  provoked  observation 
(frequently  and  wrongly  confused  with  experimenta- 
tion). 

By  provoked  observation  Is  meant  an  observation  in 
which  the  observer  himself  intervenes  actively  in  the 
production  of  the  phenomenon,  but  only  In  order  to 
establish  It  In  the  best  possible  conditions  of  certainty 
and  accuracy,  without  any  previous  hypothesis  as  to  the 
mechanism  of  Its  production.  An  observation  of  this 
kind  is  commonly  called  an  experiment ;  and  it  Is  In  this 
sense  that  It  is  said  that  "  to  put  a  subject  to  sleep," 
"  to  make  the  table  move,"  etc.,  is  to  "  conduct  an  ex- 
periment." 

But  this,  we  believe.  Is  a  wrong  use  of  the  word. 

Real  experimentation  exists  only  In  the  verification  of 
an  hypothesis.  The  experiment,  thus  understood,  must 
be  prepared  In  such  a  way  that  It  may  be  a  question 
asked  of  Nature,  forcing  her  to  answer  In  the  affirma- 
tive or  the  negative. 

The  so-called  experiments  independent  of  all  hy- 
potheses and  previous  analyses  have,  without  doubt,  a 
superiority  over  ordinary  observation  that  permits 
them  to  repeat  and  multiply  the  facts;  but,  from  the 


46    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

point  of  view  of  their  position  and  their  role  in  the 
ensemble  of  the  experimental  method,  it  is  impossible 
to  see  in  them  anything  but  a  particular  form  of  obser- 
vation.^ 

An  example  will  better  explain  the  difference  and 
the  rapports  of  these  three  forms  of  observation  in 
psychical  sciences: 

First:  One  of  my  friends  wrote  me  that  he  had 
witnessed  a  fact  which  had  impressed  him.  He  saw 
a  man,  who  called  himself  a  mesmerist,  suddenly  attract 
another  man,  several  inches  away,  by  presenting  his 
hands  at  the  height  of  the  latter's  shoulder-blades. 
As  I  have  the  greatest  confidence  in  the  judgment  and 
character  of  my  friend,  I  consider  this  fact  real,  inter- 
esting, and  worthy  of  being  related.  When  I  study  the 
magnetoidal  phenomena  I  shall  not  hesitate  to  give  it  a 
place  among  the  elements  of  the  problems  to  be  solved. 
This  is  what  may  be  called  indirect  or  mediate  obser- 
vation. 

Second:  But  I  would  not  stop  there.  Desiring  to 
be  able  to  confirm  for  myself  the  testimony  of  my 
friend,  I  went  to  the  town  where  he  lives,  and  there 
made  arrangements  to  observe  with  my  own  eyes  the 
phenomenon  which  he  described.  This  enabled  me  to 
understand  more  exactly  all  the  circumstances  and  even 
to  note  some  which  had  escaped  the  first  observer. 
This  is  a  direct  observation  of  the  first  degree,  in 

3 These  are  those  groping  experiments,  those  "trying  to  see"  ex- 
periments, which  Bacon  called  "  hazards  of  the  experiment  {sortes 
experimenti)"  and  which  he  justified  by  saying  it  is  necessary  some- 
times "  to  lift  every  stone  in  Nature."  They  are  especially  useful  in 
the  still  too-little-advanced  sciences  where,  as  Claude  Bernard  says, 
the  savant  must  "  try  to  fish  in  troubled  waters." 


OBSERVATION,  THE  FIRST  STEP      47 

which  I  act  personally  but  simply  in  the  role  of  specta- 
tor. 

Third:  I  then  placed  myself  in  the  conditions  in 
which  I  had  seen  the  mesmerist  operate,  in  order  to 
produce  the  phenomenon  myself;  or  I  engaged  different 
people  to  place  themselves  in  these  conditions,  and  I 
verified  each  time  the  results  obtained.  This  consti- 
tutes a  direct  observation  of  the  second  degree^  which 
I  have  previously  called  a  "  provoked  "  observation. 

It  can  be  said  that  these  three  forms  or  degrees  of 
observation  attract  and  complete  one  another  naturally, 
although,  in  certain  cases,  we  may  unfortunately  be 
compelled  to  stop  either  at  the  first  or  at  the  second 
degree  of  the  scale,  without  being  able  to  pass  from  the 
first  to  the  second,  and  from  the  second  to  the  third. 

ni 

Let  us  see  now  in  what  spirit  and  with  what  precau- 
tions the  observation  of  psychical  phenomena  must  be 
conducted  in  order  to  make  possible  a  correct  and 
efficacious  application  of  the  subsequent  processes  of  the 
experimental  method. 

In  all  sciences  based  upon  facts,  observation  is  pro- 
posed, first  and  above  all,  to  constate  the  facts  in  the 
best  conditions  of  certainty  and  authenticity  and  to 
permit  a  description  as  exact  and  complete  as  possible. 
When  it  is  a  question  of  facts  so  obscure,  so  capricious, 
as  psychical  facts  (understood  in  their  broadest  sense) 
the  first  aim  of  observation  is  very  difficult  to  attain. 

On  one  hand,  the  observer  is  constantly  grappling 
with  a  first  cause  of  error:  illusion.     This  not  only  ^-^ 
must  be  guarded  against  in  the  observation  actually 


\/ 


48    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

before  the  experimenter,  but  it  must  be  hunted  out  in 
the  preceding  observations,  too  often  reported  by  testi- 
mony foreign  to  all  scientific  discipline  but  which  it  is 
impossible  not  to  take  into  account. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  second  cause  of  error,  no  less 
formidable,  and  from  which  physical  and  natural 
sciences  are  generally  exempt,  is  simulation  —  decep- 
tion, conscious  or  unconscious,  which  subjects  frequently 
use  toward  their  observers. 

To  what  extent  do  these  two  causes  of  error  inter- 
vene in  the  different  branches  of  psychical  sciences,  and 
by  what  means  can  their  effects  be  prevented? 

That  question  is  too  complex  for  us  to  treat  of  it 
here.  It  is  sufficient  to  know  that  these  causes  do  exist ; 
and  in  order  to  give  a  reliable  account^  every  nhserver 
must  also  play  the  part  of  critic. 

But  m  an  experimental  science,  observation  is  not  in 
itself  its  real  end.  Beyond  the  constatation  and  the 
description  of  the  fact,  it  aims  at  another  object:  to 
gain  a  tentative  interpretation  of  the  fact,  an  anticipated 
idea,  an  hypothesis  that  will  permit  of  the  substitution, 
in  place  of  the  simple  observation,  of  that  other  process, 
called  experimentation, 

"  All  experimental  initiative,"  says  Claude  Bernard, 
"  is  in  the  idea^  for  it  is  that  which  provokes  the  experi- 
ment. Reason  or  reasoning  serves  only  to  deduce  the 
consequences  of  that  idea  and  to  submit  them  to  experi- 
ment. An  anticipated  idea  or  an  hypothesis  is  there- 
fore the  point  of  departure  necessary  for  all  experi- 
mental reasoning.  Without  that  it  will  not  be  possible 
to  make  any  instructive  investigation;  one  will  accu- 
mulate   only    sterile    observations.     An    experiment 


OBSERVATION,  THE  FIRST  STEP      49 

without  a  preconceived  idea  is  but  an  experiment  made 
at  random." 

Unfortunately  —  and  it  is  Claude  Bernard  himself 
who  makes  the  statement  —  there  do  not  exist  precise 
and  certain  rules  that  enable  us  to  sort  out  from  the 
observation  of  facts  the  directing  idea  that  alone  war- 
rants real  experimentation.  "  The  nature  of  the  idea," 
said  this  great  French  savant,  who  practised,  better 
than  all  others,  the  experimental  method,  "  is  wholly 
individual:  it  is  a  particular  statement,  a  quid  pro- 
prhim,  which  constitutes  the  originality,  the  invention, 
or  the  genius  of  each." 

This,  perhaps,  is  a  repetition  of  the  words  that  are 
attributed  to  Buffon :  "  Genius  resides  in  great  pa- 
tience " ;  and  Newton's  response  to  those  who  asked  him 
how  he  had  discovered  universal  gravitation:  "By 
always  thinking." 

He  who,  in  observing  phenomena,  is  being  constantly 
dominated  by  the  idea  and  desire  to  extract  from  them 
certain  circumstances  and  relations  which  will  enable 
him  to  divine  their  hidden  mechanism  —  has  he  not  a 
greater  chance  to  behold,  some  day,  the  long-sought- 
for  hypothesis,  than  the  one  who  confines  himself  solely 
to  producing  the  phenomena  and  then  describing  them 
as  real  facts? 

We  cannot,  therefore,  too  emphatically  recommend 
to  all  students  of  psychical  phenomena  that  interroga- 
tive attitude  of  mind  which  is  not  satisfied  merely  in 
the  knowledge  that  a  fact  is  real,  but  which  intends  to 
know  how  it  is  possible,  and  which  imagines,  supposes, 
that  it  is  the  efect  of  such  cause  or  is  the  outcome  of 
such  law. 


so     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

We  well  appreciate,  however,  the  nature  and  role 
of  the  hypothesis  thus  understood. 

There  is  not  here  an  hypothesis  that  is  in  any  way 
theoretical,  general,  having  for  its  aim  the  integration 
and  the  coordination  of  an  ensemble  of  truths  already 
acquired  —  such  as,  for  example,  in  physics  the  hy- 
pothesis of  ether  as  a  vehicle  for  heat,  light,  and  elec- 
tricity; in  chemistry  the  atomic  hypothesis ;  in  astronomy 
the  hypothesis  of  Laplace;  in  natural  science  the  hy- 
potheses of  Lamarck  and  Darwin,  etc.  It  is  an  experi- 
mental hypothesis,  special  and  precise,  bearing  upon 
the  probable  cause  or  the  probable  effect  of  such  de- 
termined phenomenon  as  the  savant  may  be  observing, 
and  suggested  by  that  same  observation.  It  has  for 
its  aim  not  the  explanation  of  the  results,  but  the  direc- 
tion of  future  researches,  destined  consequently  to  be 
submitted  immediately  to  the  control  of  experimenta- 
tion, to  be  either  verified  or  contradicted  by  it. 

From  this  point  of  view,  it  could  be  said  that  there 
are  two  kinds  of  hypotheses : 

( 1 )  The  inert,  idle,  in  the  sense  that,  whatever  sat- 
isfaction they  may  give  by  their  simplicity,  their  co- 
herence, their  reality,  etc.,  they  do  not  suggest  action, 
they  do  not  open  the  field  for  experimentation  by  which 
ahy  research  can  be  made  in  the  attempt  to  discover 
other  facts  beyond  those  of  which  they  pretend  to  fur- 
nish the  explanation. 

(2)  Those  hypotheses  which,  on  the  contrary,  are 
active_^_h^^onQusL^_m  the  sense  that Jthey  havg_tCLbe 
realized  immediately  in  effective  experiments.  Their 
purpose  is  less'Tb  explam  the  facts  already  known  than 


OBSERVATION,  THE  FIRST  STEP      51 

to  discover  new  facts,  and  after  those  facts,  still  others, 
ad  infinitum. 

One  of  the  principal  means  of  advancing  psychical 
sciences  will  be  to  substitute  more  and  more  the  experi- 
mental and  active  hypotheses  for  the  theoretical  and 
inert  hypotheses  with  which  these  sciences  are  still  en- 
cumbered. Among  these  latter,  moreover,  several 
seem  to  us  to  be  susceptible  of  reflecting,  in  a  certain 
measure,  the  form  of  the  first  —  such,  for  example,  as 
the  hypothesis  of  animal  magnetism,  as  we  have  en- 
deavored to  show  in  Our  Hidden  Forces,  On  the  other 
hand,  we  do  not  see  how  any  such  transformation 
would  be  possible  in  the  case  of  hypotheses  such  as 
that  of  the  astral  plane  proposed  by  theosophists  to 
explain  clairvoyance.  Hypotheses  of  that  kind  seem 
to  us  to  be  irremediably  inert. 

There  now  remains  the  determination  of  the  particu- 
lar conditions  of  experimentation  and  of  induction  in 
the  psychical  sciences. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOW   TO    EXPERIMENT 
I 

All  future  progress  in  psychical  research  depends 
upon  the  measure  in  which  it  will  be  possible  to  apply  to 
that  research  the  four  processes  of  the  experimental 
method,  especially  that  one  from  which  the  method 
derives  its  name  and  which  alone  characterizes  it: 
experimentation. 

But,  as  has  been  indicated  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
current  language  assembles  under  the  one  name,  ex- 
perimentation (or  experiment)  ^  two  operations  which, 
while  they  resemble  each  other  in  their  exterior  appear- 
ances, are  notably  different  if  the  place  and  the  role 
of  each  in  the  ensemble  of  the  experimental  method  be 
considered. 

They  have  this  in  common :  that  they  necessitate  the 
active  intervention  of  the  savant  in  the  production  of  the 
phenomena  which  he  wishes  to  observe ;  and  they  both 
combat  observation  proper,  where  the  savant  is  more 
or  less  the  passive  spectator  of  the  phenomena  which 
present  themselves  to  him  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
nature,  without  his  making  any  effort  to  arouse  or  to 
modify  them. 

But  there  is  between  the  two  operations  this  capital 
difference :  that  one  aims  merely  to  establish  the  fact  to 

52 


HOW  TO  EXPERIMENT  53 

which  it  is  applied  and  to  permit  as  exact  and  complete 
a  description  of  it  as  possible,  while  the  purpose  of  the 
other  is  to  verify  a  preconceived  idea,  an  hypothesis 
relative  to  the  mechanism  of  the  production  of  the 
fact. 

The  first  has,  then,  absolutely  the  same  object  and 
the  same  role  as  observation;  it  is  a  provoked  observa- 
tion. The  second,  on  the  contrary,  differs  from  obser- 
vation in  giving,  not  the  fact  itself,  but  the  idea  that 
enables  one  to  comprehend  it,  while  connecting  it  with 
the  universal  determinism  of  cause  and  effect,  and  in 
having  as  its  role  the  transformation  of  that  anticipated 
idea  into  a  law,  henceforth  acquired  to  science. 

Really,  the  first  of  these  two  operations  Is  Inter- 
mediary between  observation  and  experiment;  it  forms 
the  passage  from  one  to  the  other.  It  may,  therefore, 
be  called  observation  or  It  may  be  called  experiment, 
according  to  the  angle  from  which  It  is  viewed. 

It  Is  only  the  latter  which  gives  to  the  experimental 
method  its  proper  character  and  real  importance,  for 
it  is  this  only  which  permits  Induction  to  be  made  with 
certainty,  as  Claude  Bernard  so  deftly  demonstrated  In 
his  Introduction  a  V etude  experimentale  de  la  medecine. 
Separated  from  It,  all  the  other  processes  of  the  method 
constitute  no  more  than  an  empiricism  to  which  science 
might  resign  Itself  temporarily,  for  want  of  a  better 
method. 

II 

Here  are  the  first  questions  which  arise  regarding  the 
subject  of  experimentation  in  the  psychical  sciences : 
Is  it  possible  to  provoke  artificially,  experimentally ^ 


54    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

the  diverse  phenomena  studied  in  these  sciences? 
Does  this  possibility  not  exist  for  some  of  the  phenom^ 
ena  and  not  for  all?  Can  it  he  supposed  that  eventu- 
ally it  will  exist  for  all? 

In  order  to  answer  these  questions,  it  is  necessary  for 
us  to  consider  first  the  nature  of  psychical  facts  (or 
parapsychic)  in  general;  then  that  of  the  different 
branches  into  which  they  are  divided  —  hypnoidal 
facts,  magnetoidal  facts,  and  spiritoidal  facts. 

The  parapsychic  facts  are  all  human  facts,  they  are 
produced  in  human  beings,  and  for  this  reason  they 
oppose  difficulties  that  are  often  insurmountable.  Ex- 
periments cannot  be  made  with  human  beings  In  the 
same  way  that  they  can  with  things  or  even  with  ani- 
mals. 

In  the  first  place,  experimentation  may  encounter 
obstacles  of  a  moral  nature.  Is  It  permissible  to  subject 
an  individual,  even  with  his  consent,  to  experiments 
which  —  as  those  of  hypnotism,  magnetism,  or  spirit- 
Ism  —  are  susceptible  of  temporarily  upsetting  the 
equilibrium  of  his  physical  forces  and  his  Intellectual 
and  moral  faculties? 

This  Is  a  cas  de  conscience  regarding  which  scientists 
are  far  from  being  In  accord. 

Let  us,  however,  suppose  this  first  obstacle  to  be 
removed.  We  encounter  a  second  in  the  often  unfa- 
vorable attitude  of  the  individual  upon  whom  we  wish  to 
experiment.  For  Instance,  a  certain  subject,  who  at 
first  Is  willing  to  be  successfully  experimented  upon,  re- 
sists the  Influence  or  refuses  to  submit  himself  to  further 
experimentation,  owing  to  some  inexplicable  caprice. 


HOW  TO  EXPERIMENT  55 

At  other  times  his  complaisant  attitude  Is  but  a  sham, 
its  aim  being  to  deceive  through  the  production  of  a  sim- 
ulated phenomenon. 

These,  it  may  be  said,  are  the  Inherent  drawbacks 
to  all  studies  bearing  upon  human  facts.  And  they  are 
especially  pronounced  in  the  parapsychic  facts,  because 
these  facts  are  special,  accidental,  abnormal:  that  is  to 
say,  observable  only  in  certain  Individuals  of  the  human 
race,  in  certain  comparatively  rare  and  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances. It  follows  that  the  same  experiment, 
made  in  what  seem  to  be  the  same  conditions,  succeeds 
with  some  individuals  and  does  not  succeed  with  others ; 
it  succeeds  with  one  individual  on  a  certain  day  and  does 
not  succeed  with  the  same  individual  another  day. 
And  it  is  impossible  for  us  —  at  the  present  time  —  to 
anticipate  or  to  explain  these  disconcerting  variations. 

Let  us  add  that  a  characteristic  common  to  all  these 
individuals  —  subjects  or  mediums  —  is  their  extreme 
propensity  to  autosuggestion,  or  to  the  influence  of 
either  conscious  or  unconscious  suggestion  of  others. 
This  is  a  propensity  in  nature  to  alter,  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent,  the  results  of  the  experiment,  by  introduc- 
ing surreptitiously  among  the  causes  admitted  by  the 
experimenter  a  cause  capable  of  neutralizing  or  of  coun- 
teracting the  effects. 

The  case  would  be  still  more  serious  were  we  to 
admit,  as  some  pretend,  that  a  second  characteristic 
common  to  all  subjects  and  mediums  Is  an  ineradicable 
tendency  to  simulation,  in  all  its  forms:  falsehood, 
fraud,  mystification,  etc.  However  true  it  may  be  that 
the  experimenter  must  also  be  on  his  guard,  no  less 


56    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

than  the  observer,  against  this  possible  cause  of  error, 
it  seems,  nevertheless,  that  simulation  may  not  be  so 
constant  nor  so  general  as  has  been  pretended. 

These  —  autosuggestion,  conscious  or  unconscious 
suggestion  by  others,  and  simulation  —  independently 
of  the  complexity  and  the  polyetism  ^  of  parapsychic 
phenomena  (and  common  also  to  biological  and  socio- 
logical phenomena)  are  the  principal  difficulties  which 
the  experimenter  encounters  in  all  this  order  of  re- 
search. He  will  conquer  them,  however,  through  the 
constant  exertion  of  prudence,  vigilance,  and  tenacity. 

Ill 

If  we  review  the  different  branches  of  the  psychical 
sciences,  we  shall  find  that  each  of  them  presents  cer- 
tain difficulties  more  or  less  peculiar  to  itself;  and  that 
the  difficulties  in  their  ensemble  increase  in  proportion 
to  their  rank  in  the  hierarchy  of  the  sciences,  from 
hypnotism  to  animal  magnetism,  and  from  animal  mag- 
netism to  spiritism. 

The  study  of  hypnoidal  phenomena  is  certainly  the 
one  which  best  adapts  itself  to  experiments  of  the  first 
order  (experiments  to  see)  and  in  which,  consequently, 
experiments  of  the  second  order  (experiments  to  know) 
have  a  greater  chance  to  be  introduced  with  success. 
We  have  at  our  call  a  certain  number  of  practical  means 
to  produce  at  will  the  different  varieties  of  these  phe- 
nomena—  somnambulism,  catalepsy,  lethargy,  etc. — 
and  at  the  same  time  the  means  to  discover,  by  suffi- 

iThis  word  —  coined,  we  believe,  by  Durand  de  Gros  —  means  the 
particularity  that  certain  phenomena  present  of  being  able  to  be  pro- 
duced indifferently,  by  many  different  causes — at  least  those  which 
science  cannot  in  any  way  unify. 


HOW  TO  EXPERIMENT  57 

ciently  precise  and  constant  signs,  the  persons  in  whom 
susceptibility  to  these  phenomena  exists. 

What  is  the  action  of  the  agents  and  processes  used 
by  the  experimenter  in  provoking  the  hypnotic  state? 
He  himself  ignores  the  question ;  it  is  one  of  those  which 
his  later  investigations  will  have  to  solve.  For  the  mo- 
ment, it  is  sufficient  for  him  to  know  that  these  agents 
are  effective,  and  to  have  the  necessary  technical  ability 
to  use  them  advantageously.  Here,  as  in  many  other 
fields  of  science,  our  power,  whatever  Bacon  may  have 
said,  exceeds  our  knowledge. 

Let  us  therefore  confine  ourselves,  in  the  present  state 
of  the  psychical  sciences,  to  the  fact  that  suggestion,  the 
gaze,  the  passes,  the  fixation  of  a  brilliant  point,  etc., 
produce  hypnosis;  and  that,  similarly,  suggestion,  the 
breath,  the  passes,  etc.,  arrest  it.  We  must  use  these 
different  means  —  perhaps  separate,  perhaps  united  — 
in  our  experiments,  just  as  the  physicist  and  the  chemist 
use  light,  heat,  electricity,  the  catalytic  force,  etc., 
without  necessarily  knowing  the  nature  of  the  diverse 
agents  or  how  they  produce  their  effects. 

Of  the  different  processes  which  we  have  enumerated 
—  suggestion,  the  gaze,  passes,  etc. —  it  is  the  first 
which,  the  School  of  Nancy  pretends,  forms  in  reality 
the  basis  of  all  the  others,  and  it  is  to  this  alone  that 
they  owe  their  whole  efficiency.  Consequently,  the 
experimenters  whose  doctrines  are  inspired  by  this 
School  have  a  tendency  to  reduce  all  their  technical 
operations  practically  to  suggestion  alone. 

But,  as  we  shall  show  later  in  detail,  even  though 
the  question  may  be  extremely  interesting  and  important 
from  the  theoretical  point  of  view,  we  must  not  over- 


58    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

look  the  fact  that  it  is  not  solved  at  all.  It  would 
be  necessary,  for  its  solution,  to  conduct  a  long  series  of 
experiments  of  the  second  order,  patiently  and  method- 
ically carried  out  and  tabulated;  and  this,  so  far  as 
we  know,  has  never  been  done.  On  the  other  hand, 
from  the  practical  point  of  view,  it  is  not  necessary  that 
it  be  solved  if  we  are  sure  that  the  processes  other  than 
suggestion  (no  matter  what  these  others  may  be  in 
reality  or  in  appearance)  produce  identical,  or  equiva- 
lent, effects  —  so  long  as  our  object  is  to  provoke  hyp- 
notic states. 

From  this  point  of  view,  it  can  be  said  that  each 
experimenter  has  his  own  habits  and  his  preferences, 
which  respond,  undoubtedly,  to  his  particular  aptitudes, 
natural  or  acquired;  and  it  would  be  wrong  to  try  to 
impose  them  upon  other  experimenters  in  virtue  of 
some  such  reasoning  as  this :  "  I  employ  in  my  experi- 
ments only  one  process  (for  example,  suggestion),  and 
it  always  succeeds.  Therefore,  no  other  process  exists, 
and  this  is  the  only  one  which  can  succeed." 

Yet  the  great  majority  of  those  who  employed  these 
different  processes  rarely  had  a  scientific  aim.  Many 
sought,  rather,  a  therapeutic  result.  They  endeavored 
to  exploit  provoked  sleep,  or  the  power  of  suggestion, 
in  order  to  facilitate  surgical  operations,  or  to  aid 
certain  treatments  for  the  cure  of  nervous  affections 
and  other  maladies.  Or  often,  also,  they  wished  to 
entertain  or  strike  the  Imagination  of  the  participants 
in  their  spectacular  experiments.  They  have  accumu- 
lated a  great  quantity  of  facts  of  which  Indirect  obser- 
vation can  and  should  make  the  fullest  use.  But  per- 
haps it  is  not  exaggerating  to  say  that  the  real  expert- 


HOW  TO  EXPERIMENT  59 

mental  study  of  hypnoidal  phenomena  yet  remains  to 
be  made. 

However,  we  except  a  certain  category  of  hypnoidal 
phenomena  —  that  which  may  be  designated  by  the 
name  of  cryptopsychism,  and  which  Dr.  Pierre  Janet 
has  exhaustively  studied  under  the  name  of  dissociation 
of  the  personality.  Here  we  find  ourselves  in  the 
presence  of  a  systematic  investigation,  carried  as  far  as 
can  be  possible,  by  means  of  the  processes  and  accord- 
ing to  the  spirit  of  the  true  experimental  method. 

There  exists  a  whole  ensemble  of  special  means  for 
the  provocation  of  cryptopsychic  phenomena:  subse- 
quent somnambulism,  suggestion  by  distraction,  auto- 
matic writing,  and  vision  in  the  crystal.  By  these 
means  it  is  possible  to  institute  preordained  experi- 
ments, as  Dr.  Pierre  Janet  has  done,  so  as  to  solve  such 
particular  problems  as  are  relative  to  parapsychic  phe- 
nomena. 

IV 

The  study  of  magnetoidal  phenomena,  also,  lends  it- 
self to  experimentation,  especially  if  the  experimenter 
possess,  in  a  sufficient  degree,  the  force  or  special  apti- 
tude necessary  to  produce  them. 

Perhaps,  it  is  quite  true,  subjects  capable  of  present- 
ing these  phenomena  and  of  reacting  under  the  influence 
of  this  force  —  subjects  really  magnetic  —  are  more 
rare  than  hypnotizable  or  suggestionable  subjects.  On 
the  other  hand,  phenomena  of  animal  magnetism  are 
much  less  easy  to  simulate  than  phenomena  of  sugges- 
tion. 

Unfortunately,  in  almost  all  experiments  up  to  the 


6o    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

present  time,  little  effort  has  been  made  to  dissociate 
these  two  orders  of  phenomena,  which  accompany  each 
other  almost  inevitably,  and  are,  moreover,  capable  of 
counterfeiting  and  substituting  each  other.  Sugges- 
tion, in  particular,  tends  to  slip  surreptitiously  into 
all  the  parapsychic  phenomena.  This  is  why  it  is  nec- 
essary to  have  a  special  technique  which  shall  rigorously 
exclude  suggestion  from  all  experiments  having  for 
their  real  object  the  study  of  the  magnetic  force  and 
its  diverse  manifestations. 

In  Our  Hidden  Forces  we  indicated  the  essential 
principles  of  that  technique.  They  can  be  summarized 
by  saying  that  they  consist  in  the  complete  isolation  of 
the  subject  upon  whom  the  experiment  is  being  made: 

First,  by  removing  all  possibility  of  his  seeing  what 
happens  about  him. 

Second,  by  observing,  and  having  others  observe, 
before,  during,  and  after  the  experiment,  an  absolute 
silence. 

Third,  by  acting  only  at  a  distance,  without  con- 
tact, through  the  supposed  radiation  of  some  organ  of 
the  operator,  principally  the  hand. 

And  if  vital-radiation  does  exist,  nothing  can  prove 
that  human  beings  alone  are  sensible  to  it.  It  is  possi- 
ble that  it  acts  also  —  in  an  objective,  therefore  observ- 
able, manner  —  upon  animals,  upon  plants,  and  upon 
certain  material  objects.  Thus  there  arises  the  possi- 
bility of  a  new  series  of  experiments,  either  to  estab- 
lish the  reality  of  this  force,  or  to  determine  its  effects 
and  conditions. 

What  a  vast  field  this  study  of  magnetoidal  phe- 
nomena offers  to  the  experimenter ! 


AUTOMATIC  WRITING 

The  subject  shown  here  is  in  the  waking  state,  writing  under  the 
influence  of  the  magnetic  radiation  from  the  operator's  hand. 


HOW  TO  EXPERIMENT  61 

There  Is,  however,  in  this  field  of  research,  a  part  to 
which  access  seems  almost  entirely  closed.  It  is  that 
of  telepsychism,  or  at  least  of  its  most  characteristic 
forms :  clairvoyance,  mental  suggestion,  and  telepathy. 

What  position  can  the  experimenter  take  in  regard 
to  clairvoyance?  Once  having  provoked  it  by  his  sug- 
gestions, his  role  becomes  nothing  more  than  that  of 
an  observer.  As  yet  we  cannot  see  how  he  could  in- 
tervene in  the  phenomenon  so  as  to  take  its  mechanism 
apart  and  place  it  together  again. 

In  the  same  way  it  would  appear  that,  as  mental 
sugge'stion  usually  works  between  the  subconsciousness 
of  the  operator  and  the  subconsciousness  of  the  sub- 
ject, the  will  of  the  experimenter.  In  making  an  effort 
to  provoke  the  phenomenon,  thereby  hinders  its  produc- 
tion. The  old  saying:  "  Seek  it,  it  runs  away  from 
you;  run  from  it.  It  will  seek  you !  "  may  be  applied  to 
this  case.  If  this  is  actually  its  nature,  as  those  who 
suspect  its  latent  presence  in  almost  all  the  parapsychic 
phenomena  affirm,  then  mental  suggestion  (thus  im- 
properly named)  not  only  refuses  to  lend  itself  to  ex- 
perimentation, but  introduces  an  element  of  uncertainty 
in  all  parapsychic  experimentation  In  general.  It  still 
remains  to  be  known,  it  is  true,  if  this  conception  of 
mental  suggestion  entirely  conforms  to  reality. 

As  to  the  facts  of  telepathy^  we  are  compelled  to 
register  them  as  they  occur.  There  does  not  seem  to 
exist,  as  yet,  in  spite  of  numerous  attempts  made,  posi- 
tive and  reliable  means  which  experimenters  can  use 
for  the  provocation  of  telepathy  at  will. 

It  Is  easy  to  understand,  however,  that  experimenta- 
tion has  a  marked  place  In  hyloscopy;  for  it  Is  a  ques- 


62     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

tion  there  of  studying  the  effects  produced  by  material 
agents  upon  the  nervous  system  of  subjects  apt  to  re- 
veal them  because  of  their  exceptionally  fine  sensibility. 

V 

The  spiritoidal  phenomena,  In  spite  of  their  con- 
trary appearances,  do  not  lend  themselves  well  to  ex- 
perimentation. They  are,  above  all,  spontaneous  phe- 
nomena—  which,  it  is  true,  we  can  try  to  provoke  at 
will  in  certain  conditions:  for  example,  in  assembling 
a  number  of  persons  about  a  table  upon  which  they  put 
their  hands  in  a  state  of  expectation.  But  they  are 
merely  waiting  for  the  phenomenon,  without  knowing 
if  it  will  be  produced  or  how  it  will  be  produced.  Is 
this  really  the  way  to  experiment?  Is  it  not  rather  to 
observe,  or  simply  to  seek  to  observe?  This  is  the 
staging  of  almost  all  the  pretended  experiments  in 
spiritism. 

It  is  precisely  this  spontaneity  of  the  spiritoidal  phe- 
nomena —  spontaneite  irreductible  —  which  causes 
spiritists  to  attribute  them  to  the  action  of  intelligent 
entities,  of  invisible  operators  residing  in  the  world  of 
the  Beyond.  If  this  hypothesis  be  admitted,  is  it  not 
evident  that  the  role  of  experimenter  belongs  effectively 
to  these  entities,  in  which  case  our  role  must  be  con- 
fined to  that  of  simple  observer? 

Perhaps  this  situation  Is  only  temporary.  It  may 
be  that  future  discoveries  will  reverse  these  roles.  In 
the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  however.  It  must 
be  admitted  that  our  experimental  capacity  In  the  mat- 
ter of  spiritism  is  singularly  limited.  In  the  case  of 
"  haunting "  phenomena  it  is  reduced  to   zero.     In 


HOW  TO  EXPERIMENT  63 

mediumistic  phenomena  it  is  limited  to  placing  the 
mediums  in  the  conditions  supposed  to  be  the  most  fa- 
vorable for  the  manifestation  of  their  powers,  noting 
and  observing  the  phenomena,  more  especially  when 
they  are  of  an  intellectual  order.  Experimentation 
can  then  be  of  positive  value  when  considering  phe- 
nomena of  a  physical  order,  especially  if,  as  is  probable, 
these  phenomena  obey  the  great  law  of  psychic  conduct- 
ibility. 

To  summarize :  It  is  possible  to  experiment  in  the 
fields  of  hypnotism,  cryptopsychism,  animal  magnetism, 
and  hyloscopy.  Experimentation  is  impossible,  or 
extremely  difficult,  in  the  domains  of  metagnomy,  men- 
tal suggestion,  telepathy,  and  spiritism,  where  indirect 
observation  plays  too  great  a  part. 

And  we  shall  remain  in  this  position  until  some  prac- 
tical means  of  producing  these  phenomena  at  will  shall 
be  discovered. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   ROLE   OF   THE    HYPOTHESIS 
I 

The  hypothesis,  as  Claude  Bernard  has  definitely 
established,  is  the  great  pivot  of  the  experimental 
method.  All  real  experimentation  is  brought  into  be- 
ing and  directed  by  an  hypothesis,  the  aim  of  which  is 
to  verify  it.  In  natural  science,  however,  the  hypothe- 
sis is  legitimate  only  when  its  purpose  is  primarily  to 
arouse  and  direct  experimentation. 

This  is  the  modern  conception  of  the  experimental 
method,  so  essentially  different  from  that  which  Bacon 
and  even  Stuart  Mill  had  previously  elaborated. 

We  have  shown,  in  the  preceding  chapter,  that  the 
application  of  this  method  is  not  possible  —  at  least 
at  the  present  time  —  in  all  branches  of  the  psychical 
sciences,  inasmuch  as  a  general  condition  of  it  is  the 
possibility  for  the  savant  to  Intervene  actively  in  the 
production  of  the  phenomena  which  he  studies  —  either 
in  order  to  create  them,  or  to  modify  them,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  quantity  as  well  as  from  that  of  qual- 
ity. Now,  this  condition  is  not  actually  fulfilled  in 
many  branches  of  psychical  research,  where  the  savant 
is  reduced  to  mere  observation,  and  often,  indeed,  to 
indirect  observation. 

Where  this  condition  does  exist,  however,  let  us 
examine  the  connections  between  the  four  processes  of 

64 


THE  ROLE  OF  THE  HYPOTHESIS     65 

the  experimental  method  in  the  psychical  sciences. 
And  especially  let  us  note  the  place  and  the  role  which 
should  be  assigned  to  the  hypothesis. 

II 

To  illustrate  our  point,  we  shall  give  an  example 
which  we  already  have  used  : 

We  have  seen  a  man  place  his  hands,  for  several 
moments,  against  the  shoulder-blades  of  another  per- 
son, then  withdraw  them  slowly;  and  this  latter  has 
appeared  to  be  attracted  backward  more  or  less  vio- 
lently. 

This  is  an  observation.  We  have  repeated  it  many 
times;  we  have  tried  to  apperceive  the  different  partic- 
ularities as  exactly  and  completely  as  possible;  and  we 
have  given  a  full  and  faithful  description  of  it.  We 
might  easily  multiply  ad  infinitum  observations  of  this 
kind ;  but  in  so  doing  we  could  not  go  beyond  the  limits 
of  pure  empiricism. 

Wishing  to  ascertain  if  we  too  can  produce  this  phe- 
nomenon, we  apply  our  hands  to  the  shoulder-blades  of 
another,  and  establish  the  fact  that  it  determines  a  sort 
of  attraction. 

Strictly  speaking,  this  might  be  called  an  experiment; 
but  this  experiment  has,  in  reality,  the  same  signification 
and  the  same  value  as  an  observation ;  it  is  what  we  may 
call  a  provoked  observation.  Nevertheless,  it  has  a 
very  great  importance.  For  it  is  this  which  makes 
possible  the  application  of  the  experimental  method  to 
the  study  of  this  phenomenon;  it  is  this  which  leads  the 
way  to  true  experimentation. 

What  must  we  do,  in  order  to  pass  from  this  first 


66    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

stage  —  the  stage  of  observation  —  to  the  second,  and 
enter  effectively  the  domain  of  the  experimental 
method? 

First  of  all,  it  is  necessary  that  a  question  be  formed 
in  our  mind,  and  then  that  we  imagine  an  answer  to 
that  question. 

That  one  person  attracts,  or  appears  to  attract,  an- 
other by  the  imposition  of  the  hands  upon  the  shoulder- 
blades  is  a  fact  that  we  have  proved,  or,  better,  that  we 
ourselves  have  provoked.  But  if  this  fact  is  not 
changed  by  us  into  a  problem^  it  remains  sterile,  use- 
less, from  the  point  of  view  of  scientific  and  experi- 
mental research. 

How  is  this  attraction  possible?  On  what  condi- 
tions does  it  depend?  By  what  mechanism  is  it  pro- 
duced? 

This  problem,  in  its  turn,  must  suggest  to  us  a  pos- 
sible solution;  and  it  is  this  possible  solution  which  is 
really  the  experimental  hypothesis. 

For  example,  we  can  suppose  that  the  attraction,  real 
or  apparent,  is  caused  ( i )  by  the  fatigue  of  the  indi- 
vidual, resulting  from  the  more  or  less  prolonged 
standing  —  that  he  unconsciously  leans  against  the 
hands  of  the  operator;  or  (2)  by  the  loss  of  equilibrium 
which  the  withdrawing  of  the  hands  determines;  or 
(3)  by  the  involuntary  suggestion  which  results  from 
the  conditions  of  the  experiment;  or  (4)  by  an  elec- 
tive action,  of  a  nature  yet  unknown,  but  really  radiant, 
which  the  hands  have  the  property  of  projecting. 

If  we  hesitate  to  compare  these  hypotheses  among 
themselves,  to  enumerate  them,  to  weigh  the  reality 


THE  ROLE  OF  THE  HYPOTHESIS      67 

and  the  unreality  of  each  of  them,  or  even  if,  in  choos- 
ing one  to  the  exclusion  of  all  the  others,  we  endeavor, 
by  reasoning  only,  constructing  and  complicating  it  by 
additional  hypotheses,  to  demonstrate  that  this  is  the 
sole  possible  solution  to  the  problem,  we  shall  only 
turn  our  back  upon  the  real  experimental  method,  and 
we  shall  not  arrive  at  any  positive  result. 

How,  then,  shall  we  proceed? 

First  of  all,  it  is  evident  that,  among  the  diverse 
solutions  or  hypotheses  possible,  we  must  choose  one, 
at  least  tentatively.  This  once  chosen,  we  must  de- 
termine by  deductive  reasoning,  the  consequences  which 
we  may  be  able  then  to  submit  to  the  control  of  the 
experiment.  This  phase  —  of  capital  importance  — 
is  what  Claude  Bernard  called  experimental  reasoning. 
It  is  at  this  moment  that  the  mind  decides  upon  the 
plan  of  future  experiments:  (i)  If  the  phenomenon 
depends  upon  certain  supposed  conditions,  it  cannot  be 
produced  if  these  conditions  be  suppressed.  (2)  The 
phenomenon  can  be  produced  if  these  specified  condi- 
tions be  realized,  regardless  of  all  other  circumstances. 
(3)  If  the  conditions  be  modified  in  a  given  way,  the 
phenomenon  will  be  found  modified  correspondingly. 

The  savant  can  at  the  beginning  write  down  on 
paper  an  outline  of  the  combinations,  and  then  try  to 
realize  them,  one  by  one.  These,  according  to  the 
extent  of  his  success,  will  either  confirm  or  refute  the 
hypothesis  being  put  to  the  test. 

There  is  here  wholly  an  intellectual  work,  where 
the  imagination  plays  as  great  a  part  as,  and  sometimes 
greater  than,  reasoning;  as  is  the  case  also  in  mathe- 


68     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

matlcs,  where  the  solution  of  the  problem  is  often  a 
matter  of  imaginative  ingenuity  as  much  as,  or  more 
than,  of  deductive  rigor. 

This  ingenuity,  this  sagacity  of  the  savant,  is  mani- 
fested in  the  choice,  among  a  more  or  less  large  num- 
ber of  hypotheses,  of  that  one  which  will  lead  him 
most  directly  and  surely  to  some  important  and  de- 
cisive discovery.  "  It  is,"  said  Claude  Bernard,  "  a 
particular  sentiment,  a  quid  proprium,  which  consti- 
tutes the  originahty,  the  invention,  or  the  genius  of 
each  experimenter." 

Thus,  in  the  example  cited  a  moment  ago,  an  ex- 
perienced researcher  will  not  waste  much  time  In  con- 
sidering the  hypotheses  of  fatigue  or  of  the  loss  of 
equilibrium;  he  will  devote  his  attention  immediately 
to  the  hypothesis  of  suggestion  or  that  of  magnetoldal 
action,  and  all  his  effort  will  be  bent  upon  deciding, 
by  a  series  of  appropriate  experiments,  which  of  these 
two  accord,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  with  all  the 
particularities  of  the  fact. 

Ill 

According  to  Claude  Bernard,  there  are  no  rules 
that  will  enable  us  to  create  in  the  brain,  apropos  of  an 
observation  made,  a  just  and  fruitful  idea  which  may 
be  for  the  experimenter  a  sort  of  intuitive  anticipation 
of  the  mind  toward  a  successful  research.  When  the 
idea  is  once  gained,  we  can  show  how  it  is  necessary  to 
submit  It  to  definite  precepts  and  precise  and  logical 
rules.  But  Its  conception  has  been  wholly  spontaneous 
and  its  nature  wholly  Individual. 

Although  it  is  not  possible  to  anticipate  the  details 


THE  ROLE  OF  THE  HYPOTHESIS      69 

of  the  hypotheses  that  will  cause  the  savant  to  observe 
a  certain  particular  fact,  it  seems  possible  to  us,  at  least 
in  psychical  research,  to  determine  the  order  in  which 
these  hypotheses  will  range  themselves;  and  conse- 
quently the  foreknowledge  of  this  order  will  itself  serve 
to  guide  the  researcher  through  the  labyrinth  of  the 
phenomena. 

They  constitute,  In  effect,  the  general  hypotheses  im- 
plicitly included  in  the  particular  hypotheses  which  up 
to  this  point  have  been  the  only  ones  regarded.  They 
are,  it  might  be  said,  the  abstract  and  schematic  for- 
mulae to  which  these  latter  can  be  reduced  and  which 
are  found  again  in  them,  but  clothed  in  concrete  cir- 
cumstances which  complicate  and  diversify  them. 

We  shall  not  consider  here  these  general  hypotheses 
in  their  rapport  with  the  experimental  method;  but  it 
is  certain  that  they  have  been  and  are  still  considered 
by  many  from  a  wholly  different  point  of  view  —  as 
theories  subsisting  and  having  value  of  themselves, 
without  necessary  relation  to  the  experimental  method, 
as  explanations  permitting  the  rational  coordination  of 
a  whole  ensemble  of  phenomena  which  otherwise  would 
remain  an  enigma  incomprehensible  to  the  human  mind. 

Is  it  necessary  to  state  once  more  that  such*a  point 
of  view,  although  admissible  when  It  Is  a  question  of 
sciences  relatively  far  advanced  In  experimental  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts  being  studied,  seems  absolutely  un- 
tenable in  an  order  of  researches  as  imperfect,  as  rudi- 
mentary, as  that  which  has  for  its  object  the  para- 
psychic  phenomena  ? 

Theories  of  this  nature  can  find  a  place  only  at  the^ 
point  of  arrival  of  investigations  patiently  and  success- 


70    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

fully  conducted.     In  the  parapsychic  sciences  we  have 
scarcely  left  the  point  of  departure. 

Let  us  guard,  then,  against  theorizing,  and  not  take 
these  general  hypotheses  for  more  than  they  really  are 
—  simple  tools  to  be  employed  in  the  field  of  experi- 
mentation, and  utterly  valueless  if  put  to  any  other 


IV 

It  will  not  be  without  interest  to  review  these  differ- 
ent hypotheses,  as  they  are  encountered  at  each  step, 
immediately  the  domain  of  the  psychical  sciences  is 
entered.  It  is  comparatively  easy  to  recognize  each  of 
them  under  the  modifications  brought  about  by  the 
diversity  of  uses  to  which  each  is  susceptible. 

Most  often,  these  hypotheses  consist  in  an  extension 
to  new  facts  of  a  general  law  or  proposition  of  which 
the  truth  has  already  been  recognized  by  other  facts. 
It  may  be,  for  example,  the  hypotheses  of  illusion  and 
simulation,  which  are  frequently  invoked  by  a  number 
of  savants  in  order  to  produce  the  most  marvelous,  the 
most  improbable,  phenomena.  There  are  numerous 
and  circumstantiated  narrations  of  these  in  the  litera- 
ture of  mesmerists,  occultists,  and  spiritists.  That  in  a 
given  case  there  may  be  illusion  or  simulation  is  not 
an  hypothesis;  it  is  a  fact  already  proved.  But  that 
in  other  cases,  in  all  cases,  there  may  be  nothing  more 
than  illusion  or  simulation  —  this  cannot  be  affirmed 
without  forming  in  itself  an  hypothesis ;  and  it  is  justly 
this  hypothesis  which  it  will  be  well  to  prove,  not 
merely  by  the  logic  of  reasoning,  but,  if  possible,  by 
experimental  verification. 


THE  ROLE  OF  THE  HYPOTHESIS      71 

Similarly,  suggestioHy  cryptopsychism,  and  even,  al- 
though less  surely,  the  transmission  of  thought  (com- 
monly called  mental  suggestion)  are  not,  when  taken  in 
themselves,  hypotheses.  They  are  facts,  in  the  sense 
that  it  has  been  positively  established,  in  definite  cases, 
that  suggestion,  cryptopsychism,  the  transmission  of 
thought,  really  exist.  But  they  become  hypotheses 
when  one  supposes  their  intervention  in  other  cases 
where  their  existence  is  not  at  all  manifest  and  where 
it  can  only  be  believed  that  it  is  possible. 

At  other  times,  the  hypothesis  consists  in  the  intro- 
duction of  a  new  general  law  or  proposition,  of  which 
the  truth  is  entirely  problematic,  but  which  is  more  or 
less  analogous  to  some  general  law  or  proposition  of 
which  the  truth  is  incontestably  known  in  another  order 
of  knowledge.  Thus  we  know,  in  physics,  that  the 
magnet  attracts  iron;  but  we  have  no  proof  in  physiol- 
ogy that  a  human  organism  can  similarly  exert  an  at- 
tractive action  upon  another  organism.  If,  then,  in 
order  to  explain  the  process  of  Moutin,  we  suppose  a 
magnetic  action  emanating  from  the  operator  and  influ- 
encing the  nervous  system  of  the  subject,  we  shall  have 
an  hypothesis  bearing  not  only  upon  the  existence  of 
a  law  already  known  but  upon  the  introduction  of  a 
law  still  unknown. 

In  a  similar  way,  we  know  that  the  human  intelli- 
gence and  the  human  will  produce,  through  the  medium 
of  human  organs,  certain  effects  directly  observable; 
but  we  have  no  proof  that  these  same  effects  can  be 
produced  by  other  intelligences  and  other  wills,  with- 
out organs  or  through  the  medium  of  other  organs. 
To  suppose  that  this  happens  in  certain  cases  is  to  in- 


72     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

troduce  a  new  law,  and  not  simply  to  extend  an  old 
law  to  these  new  cases. 

There  can,  then,  it  seems,  be  distinguished  in  this 
order  of  researches  two  categories  of  hypotheses : 

(i)  Inductive  hypotheses.  Those  that  l^ad  hypo- 
thetically  from  certain  facts  to  other  facts  which  ap- 
pear to  be  of  the  same  kind. 

(2)  Analogical  hypotheses.  Those  that  consist  in 
applying  by  analogy  to  a  certain  order  of  facts  a  law 
similar  to  that  which  governs  another  order  of  facts. 

Looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  strict  logic,  it  is 
evident  that  the  inductive  hypotheses  must  be  pre- 
ferred to  the  hypotheses  by  analogy.  Recourse  to  the 
latter,  a  logician  would  readily  say,  is  not  permissible 
except  when  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  make  the 
facts  agree  with  the  inductive  hypotheses.  And  with- 
out doubt  the  experimenter  would  be  wrong  in  dis- 
regarding the  logician's  indication.  But  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  experimental  method,  which  is 
necessarily  his  own,  the  fecundity  of  the  hypotheses  is 
a  quality  as  valuable  as  their  truth.  The  discovery  of 
new  facts  and  of  new  rapports  is  much  more  important 
in  the  experimenter's  eyes  than  the  explanation  of  the 
facts  and  the  rapports  already  known. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  analogical  hypotheses, 
which  permit  us  to  open  new  chapters  in  the  book  of 
Nature,  are  from  this  point  of  view  —  all  things  being 
equal  —  more  favorable  to  the  enlargement  of  science 
than  inductive  hypotheses,  which  permit  us  merely  to 
add  new  paragraphs,  new  "  items,"  to  the  chapters  al- 
ready open. 


THE  ROLE  OF  THE  HYPOTHESIS      73 


These  hypotheses,  however,  appear  to  us  to  be 
purely  logical,  and  to  lend  themselves  badly  to  the  reg- 
ular applications  of  the  experimental  method.  In  their 
relation  to  this  method  they  are,  it  might  be  said,  re- 
strictive and  negative  hypotheses :  such,  for  example,  as 
those  hypotheses  which  ally  all  the  parapsychic  phe- 
nomena to  illusion  or  simulation. 

Certainly  the  experimenter  must  always  have  in 
mind  the  possibility  of  one  or  the  other  of  these  hypoth- 
eses; but  they  must  be  excluded  after  control,  as  it  is 
only  after  this  exclusion  that  he  can  effectively  experi- 
ment under  the  direction  of  positive  hypotheses.  If  he 
undertook  his  researches  with  the  intention  of  reduc- 
ing systematically  to  illusion  or  to  simulation  all  the 
facts  which  he  will  study,  he  would  close  to  himself  the 
road  to  experimentation.  Would  not  such  disposition 
of  mind  be  equivalent,  in  effect,  to  declaring  that,  inas- 
much as  the  parapsychic  phenomena  are  all  illusory 
and  simulated,  these  pretended  phenomena  do  not 
really  exist,  and  that  consequently  it  is  useless  and  even 
impossible  to  make  them  the  object  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation ? 

This  appears  evident  to  us  regarding  the  hypothesis 
of  illusion. 

As  to  the  hypothesis  of  simulation,  it  is  true  that 
the  experimenter  could  aim  to  see  if  it  is  not  possible 
to  simulate  experimentally  the  different  hypnoidal, 
magnetoldal  and  spiritoidal  phenomena,  reported  by 
other  observers  or  experimenters  as  authentic.     Here, 


74    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

certainly,  is  a  whole  series  of  attempts  which  it  will 
well  be  worth  the  trouble  to  undertake,  especially  in 
order  to  be  able  to  determine  precisely  which  are,  in 
the  ensemble  of  these  phenomena,  those  which  can  be 
simulated  and  those  which  cannot;  and  also  in  what 
conditions  and  to  what  extent  this  simulation  is  pos- 
sible, when  it  is  present.  It  is  certain,  for  example, 
that  the  greater  part  of  the  phenomena  of  hypnotism 
and  of  suggestion  can  be  simulated  with  the  utmost 
ease;  although  there  exist,  perhaps,  means  (of  which 
it  would  be  interesting  to  make  a  special  study)  to  dis- 
tinguish the  "  paste  "  from  the  "  diamond/*  But  the 
conclusions  which  could  be  drawn  from  this  work,  even 
in  supposing  them  favorable  to  the  hypothesis,  would 
advance  the  question  but  little;  for  the  fact  that  a 
certain  phenomenon  can  be  simulated  does  not  neces- 
sarily mean  that  it  cannot  equally  exist  also  in  an 
authentic  form. 

Yet  the  partizans  of  the  hypotheses  of  illusion  and 
simulation  refrain  ordinarily  from  entering  the  experi- 
mental field,  being  content  to  reason  in  the  abstract  and 
a  priori;  they  treat  the  problem  not  as  experimenters 
but  as  dialectitians.  Their  argumentation  consists  first 
in  showing,  by  the  analysis  of  a  certain  number  of  cases 
reported  by  other  observers,  the  presence  of  illusion  or 
fraud;  and  then  in  inferring,  without  any  further  infor- 
mation, that  all  other  cases  of  the  same  kind  could  be 
analyzed  in  the  same  way,  that  an  identical  result  would 
be  arrived  at  infallibly  in  all  cases  similar  to  the  one 
under  discussion.  According  to  this  stereotyped-reas- 
oning,  the  troublesome  obligation  to  examine  the  enig- 
mas raised  by  the  parapsychic  phenomena  is  removed 


THE  ROLE  OF  THE  HYPOTHESIS     75 

once  for  all.  This  ''  simple  previous  question  "  is  all 
that  is  required  to  bring  these  phenomena  en  bloc  to  the 
door  of  science. 

But  those  who  employ  this  convenient  artifice  of  pro- 
cedure must  fully  realize  that  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  experimental  method. 

VI 

It  is  necessary  that  we  review  the  principal  positive 
hypotheses  to  which  the  psychical  sciences  can  and  do 
have  effective  recourse,  in  order  to  apply  to  the  diverse 
orders  of  phenomena  the  processes  of  the  experimental 
method. 

These  hypotheses,  which  are  indissolubly  linked  to 
experimentation,  in  place  of  being,  as  the  preceding, 
mere  matter  for  argumentation,  require  a  certain  pre- 
vious knowledge,  both  theoretical  and  practical,  not 
only  of  the  most  general  difficulties  opposed  to  experi- 
mentation by  the  very  nature  of  the  phenomena,  but 
also,  and  above  all,  a  knowledge  of  the  best  means  to 
overcome  these  difficulties. 

Before  beginning  the  study  of  the  positive  hypoth- 
eses, we  shall  discuss  this  necessary  preliminary  knowl- 
edge of  the  difficulties  and  of  the  means  of  overcoming 
them. 


CHAPTER  VI 

OUR   LATENT   PSYCHIC    FACULTIES 


The  first,  and  not  the  least,  of  the  difficulties  pre- 
sented by  the  study  of  the  parapsychic  phenomena  Is 
that  these  phenomena  are  not  produced  in  an  ordinary 
way,  but  allow  themselves  to  be  perceived  only  rarely 
and  In.  exceptional  and  abnormal  circumstances.  The 
truth  is  that,  in  order  to  study  them,  it  usually  is  neces- 
sary for  us  to  provoke  them  ourselves,  artificially.  But 
here  experimentation  encounters  a  new  difficulty.  The 
same  processes  do  not  succeed  with  all  subjects,  nor  in 
all  circumstances. 

The  most  disconcerting  character  of  these  phenom- 
ena is  their  irregularity.  One  may  well  endeavor  to 
observe,  each  time,  identical  conditions;  but  sometimes 
the  phenomena  manifest  themselves  at  the  least  effort, 
while  at  other  times  they  obstinately  remain  invisible, 
to  the  extent  that  we  almost  doubt  their  possibility. 
We  are  here,  it  seems,  in  the  domain  of  the  unexpected 
and  the  Indeterminate. 

If  we  consider,  in  particular,  the  simplest  phenomena, 
those  which  are  as  the  first  links  of  the  parapsychic 
series  —  the  phenomena  of  hypnotism  and  suggestion 
—  we  establish  the  fact  that,  although  they  are  more 
frequent  and  in  some  ways  more  accessible  than  the 

76 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES    77 

others,  they  are  themselves  also  subject  to  the  most 
incoherent  exceptions  and  inexplicable  caprices.^ 

The  School  of  Nancy  claims,  it  is  true,  that  all  human 
beings  are  suggestionable  and  hypnotizable.  But  that 
assertion  remains  purely  theoretical;  practise  shows  us 
that  the  same  maneuvers,  applied  to  different  individ- 
uals, with  the  aim  of  suggestioning  or  hypnotizing 
them,  produce  immediate  and  surprising  results  with 
some,  while  with  others  they  fail  miserably. 

Let  us  remember,  however,  that  electrical  phenomena 
presented  the  same  appearance  at  the  beginning.  The 
laws  which  regulated  them  could  be  ascertained  only 
when  they  could  be  produced  experimentally:  that  is, 
when  the  savants  could  distinguish  among  natural 
bodies  those  which  conserve  and  condense  electricity, 
once  produced,  and  those  which  conduct  it  and  disperse 
it  instantaneously. 

So,  among  human  beings,  it  is  an  incontestable  al- 
though still  inexplicable  fact  that  some  are  naturally 
apt  to  present  the  phenomena  of  hypnotism  and  sug- 
gestion immediately  they  are  submitted  to  the  influ- 
ence, while  others  are,  or  appear  to  be.  Incapable  of 
this  mode  of  reaction. 

How  can  we  explain  this  difference  in  the  effects  of 
causes  apparently  identical? 

Undoubtedly,  it  is  due  to  some  profound  difference 
in  the  physical  and  moral  constitution  of  the  human 
beings  submitted  to  the  experiment;  but  its  nature  is 

1  Charles  Richet,  in  Vhomme  et  V intelligence,  says:  "All  that  is 
observed  is  inconstant,  irregular,  mobile.  There  is  no  fixed  rule;  the 
phenomena  observed  vary  with  each  observer  and  with  each  subject. 
That  which  is  announced  is  not  produced,  and  that  which  is  not  an- 
nounced is  produced." 


78    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

absolutely  unknown  to  us,  and  the  words  hysteria,  nerv- 
ousness, weakness  of  temperament  or  of  will,  often 
heard  in  popular  phraseology,  serve  only  to  mask  our 
ignorance.  Not  until  we  shall  know  precisely  in  what 
this  difference  consists,  until  we  shall  know  in  an  ac- 
curate and  positive  manner  the  necessary  and  sufficient 
conditions  which  determine  the  special  sensibility  of 
certain  individuals  and  the  apparent  insensibility  of 
others  —  not  until  then  will  the  science  of  psychical 
phenomena  be  definitely  established.  It  will  then 
cease  to  be  in  great  part  empirical  and  become  really 
experimental. 

But  while  waiting  for  this  decisive  evolution,  it 
would  be  very  useful  to  be  able  to  distinguish  at  once, 
from  among  a  certain  number  of  individuals,  those 
who  are  susceptible  of  presenting  the  parapsychic  phe- 
nomena, at  least  in  its  elementary  forms,  and  those  who 
are  not.  Really,  these  phenomena  exist  in  many  more 
people  than  is  ordinarily  believed.  But  we  do  not 
know,  or  we  know  only  imperfectly,  how  to  discern 
that  potentiality  when  it  does  exist;  and  it  is  this 
which  hinders  us  from  actualizing  it  at  will. 

The  first  question,  then,  which  arises  when  the  ex- 
perimental study  of  the  psychical  sciences  is  begun,  is 
this: 

How  shall  we  discover,  from  among  human  beings, 
those  who  are  capable  of  manifesting  the  parapsychic 
phenomena, —  those  who  are  ^'  subjects  ".^ 

In  other  words,  the  first  point  to  be  considered  is  the 
finding  of  the  subjects  themselves. 

There  is  no  special  term  to  designate  the  quality  of 
the  subjects:  that  is,  the  condition  or  the  ensemble  of 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES     79 

conditions  which  makes  them  subjects.  In  spiritoidal 
phenomena,  we  have  the  word  mediumistic,  which  cor- 
responds to  the  word  medium;  but  usage  does  not  per- 
mit us  to  employ  the  word  subjectivity  (used  in  philos- 
ophy with  a  wholly  different  meaning)  to  correspond  to 
the  word  subject.  As  a  special  term  seems  to  us  abso- 
lutely indispensable,  and  as  the  most  general  charac- 
teristic that  the  subjects  present  is  their  more  or  less 
great  obedience  to  suggestion,  we  shall  employ,  for 
want  of  a  better  term,  the  word  suggestibility,  to  desig- 
nate in  a  general  manner  the  aptitude  to  manifest  the 
parapsychic  phenomena  —  the  most  complex  as  well  as 
the  most  elementary. 

Two  objections  can  be  made  to  the  choice  of  this 
word :  one  of  a  simple  form,  another  which  goes  much 
deeper. 

First  of  all,  it  can  be  observed,  with  Durand  de 
Gros,  that  the  word  suggestible  cannot  be  applied  cor- 
rectly to  persons.  An  act  —  flight,  for  example,  or 
murder  —  can  be  suggested,  and  is  therefore  suggesti- 
ble; but  when  it  is  a  question  of  a  person,  it  must  be 
said  that  he  can  be  suggestioned  or  that  he  is  sugges- 
tionable.  The  correct  term,  then,  would  be  sugges- 
tionability.  But  this  word  seems  too  ponderous,  too 
cumbersome;  and,  moreover,  the  question  has  less  in- 
terest for  us  than  for  grammarians  and  lexicographers. 

The  second  and  more  serious  objection  is  that  any 
such  denomination  seems  to  belong  to  the  three  or 
four  great  theories  which  have  been  proposed  by  the 
interpretation  the  phenomena  present  in  the  subjects, 
and  about  which  opinion  is  still  divided  among  the 
savants  engaged  in  this  study.     These  theories  are: 


8o    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

suggestioHy  hypnotism,  animal  magnetism,  and  telep- 
athy or  mental  suggestion. 

We  believe  that  each  of  these  four  Interpretations 
has  its  share  of  reality.  Each  of  them  responds  more 
particularly  to  a  certain  category  of  phenomena. 
There  are  subjects,  perhaps  the  most  numerous,  in 
whom  all  happens  in  conformity  with  the  theory  of  sug- 
gestion as  professed  by  the  School  of  Nancy.  There 
are  others  who  verify  the  assertions  of  the  School  of 
the  Salpetriere,  which  has  especially  defended  the  the- 
ory of  hypnotism.  There  are  still  others  in  whom  are 
observed  certain  phenomena  inexplicable  by  the  hypoth- 
eses of  these  two  Schools  and  which  seem  to  justify 
those  of  the  partizans  of  animal  magnetism  and  telep- 
athy. 

From  this,  at  least  four  types  of  subjects  would  be 
possible : 

1.  The  suggestible  (or  suggestionable). 

2.  The  hypnotic  (or  hypnotizable). 

3.  The  magnetic  Or  mesmeric   (magnetizable  or 

mesmerizable). 

4.  The  telepathic  subject. 

But  in  practise,  let  us  hasten  to  say,  it  is  very  rare 
to  find  subjects  who  offer  each  of  these  types  in  a  state 
of  absolute  purity:  almost  always  a  suggestible  subject 
is  also  hynotizable,  and  vice  versa;  in  an  experiment 
where  the  operator  believes  he  is  employing  nothing 
but  suggestion  or  hypnotism,  very  often  animal  mag- 
netism or  telepathy  Intervenes  unconsciously.  Unless 
special  measures  of  extraordinary  precision  and  deli- 
cacy be  employed,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  determine 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES     81 

in  each  particular  case  the  exact  part  of  each  of  these 
agents. 

In  employing  the  word  suggestibility  to  designate  the 
quality  of  the  subjects,  we  shall  use  the  word  in  the 
most  general  sense;  it  will  signify  for  us  susceptibility 
to  hypnotic,  magnetic  (mesmeric),  or  telepathic  influ- 
ences, as  well  as  to  suggestive  influences,  except  to  dis- 
tinguish, in  its  place,  the  different  specific  modalities 
of  that  general  susceptibility. 

II 

Are  there  any  signs  or  processes,  any  reactives, 
which  enable  us  to  discover  suggestibility  thus  under- 
stood :  that  is  to  say,  the  general  aptitude  to  present  the 
parapsychic  phenomena? 

First,  let  us  consider  the  easily  observable  physiog- 
nomic signs. 

( 1 )  Subjects,  it  is  sometimes  said,  are  individuals  of 
nervous  or  lymphatic  temperament.  In  admitting  that 
this  may  be  true,  it  would  be  necessary  to  know  by  what 
indications  these  two  temperaments  may  be  recognized. 
The  question  thus  is  carried  back  a  step,  not  solved. 
Then,  if  subjects  are  most  often  nervous  or  lymphatic, 
does  it  follow  that  all  people  who  are  nervous  or  lym- 
phatic may  be  subjects? 

(2)  The  magnetizer,  Charles  Lafontaine,  claims  to 
have  discovered  that  all  persons  who  have  bulging  eyes 
are  subjects;  but,  lacking  necessary  proof  to  the  con- 
trary, it  is  very  difficult  to  know  that  this  generaliza- 
tion is  true. 

(3)  The  impression  is  received,  in  the  presence  of 


82    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

many  subjects,  that  there  is  a  particular  characteristic 
in  the  look  in  their  eyes.  But  it  is  more  easy  to  feel 
this  peculiar  characteristic,  this  something,  than  it  is 
to  define  it;  it  is,  it  might  be  said,  a  humid  and  cloudy 
eclat,  a  light  shining  behind  a  darkened  glass.  But 
how  could  we  make  practical  use  of  an  indication  so 
vague  ? 

(4)  It  is  claimed  that  any  one  whose  ear,  deprived 
of  the  lobe,  is  directly  fastened  to  the  cheek,  is  infal- 
libly a  subject.  It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  an 
extended  observation  would  verify  this  generaliza- 
tion. 

(5)  There  is  a  similar  pretension  regarding  a  cer- 
tain form  of  thumb :  thick,  short,  and  rounded. 

(6)  It  is  often  claimed  that  subjects  have  moist 
hands;  or  have  the  habit  of  biting  their  nails.  But  can 
it  be  concluded  that  all  those  who  have  the  habit  of 
biting  their  nails  are  subjects? 

"  Certain  favorable  conditions,'*  says  Charles  Richet 
in  Uhomme  et  r intelligence,  "  can  be  determined  with 
sufficient  precision.  Women  are  more  sensitive  than 
men.  Regarding  the  age,  I  believe  that  children  can 
be  put  to  sleep;  but  I  have  never  attempted  the  ex- 
periment with  very  young  subjects,  as  I  did  not  wish 
to  create  in  them  a  nervous  state  that  would  not  be 
without  inconvenience.  ...  I  have  put  to  sleep  young 
girls  of  seventeen  to  eighteen.  But  that  age  would  not 
seem  to  be  the  most  favorable.  It  appears  that  the 
best  age  would  be  from  twenty-five  to  forty  years.  As 
to  the  very  old,  I  believe  that  they  are  extremely  re- 
bellious to  magnetism.  I  have  succeeded  in  putting 
to  sleep  a  woman  sixty  years  old;  but  in  her  the  sleep 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES     83 

.has  never  been  complete,  and  the  symptoms  have  had 
little  interest.  Nervous  temperaments  are,  as  will 
easily  be  concluded,  more  susceptible  than  others.  In 
general,  small  women,  brunettes,  with  black  eyes,  black 
hair,  heavy  eyebrows,  are  the  most  favorable  subjects. 
However,  experiments  have  succeeded  very  well  with 
pale  and  lymphatic  women,  and  have  failed  with  very 
nervous  persons.  In  sleep,  the  delicate  women,  nerv- 
ous, languid,  afflicted  with  a  chronic  malady  or  con- 
valescent, are  certainly,  more  than  all  others,  apt  to 
react  to  the  influence  of  magnetism." 

It  can  be  seen  that  these  indications,  although  given 
by  one  of  the  leading  scientists  in  this  field,  are  never- 
theless vague,  and  difficult  to  utilize  in  practise.  Be- 
sides, it  does  not  seem  to  us  absolutely  sure  that  women 
may  be,  as  is  affirmed,  more  sensitive  than  men.  Ex- 
periments which  have  been  made  up  to  the  present  time 
have  been,  in  the  great  majority,  with  women,  and  it  is 
consequently  very  natural  that  those  who  made  the 
experiments  have  considered  women  more  sensitive 
than  men.  To  obtain  certainty  in  this  matter,  it  would 
be  necessary  to  have  experiments  and  comparative  sta- 
tistics infinitely  more  numerous  and  more  precise  than 
all  those  which  have  existed  thus  far. 

In  view  of  the  lack  of  easily  observable  signs,  vari- 
ous kinds  of  apparatus  have  been  devised  to  reveal  sug- 
gestibility, as  the  thermometer  reveals  temperature. 

Dr.  Ochorowicz  has  proposed  his  hypnoscope,  a 
magnetic  steel  tube  which  is  put  on  the  finger  like  a 
ring.  Any  one  who  feels  marked  sensations  of  chill, 
of  numbness,  etc.,  is,  it  is  said,  suggestible  and  hypno- 
tizable.     But  Dr.   Crocq,  Jr.,   of   Brussels,   declares 


84    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

that  he  has  never  observed  any  constant  action  with 
this  apparatus,  and  that  everything  has  always  de- 
pended upon  autosuggestion. 

The  sensttivometer  of  Durville,  a  curved  magnetic 
steel  bar  which  is  placed  round  the  wrist,  the  negative 
pole  being  put  beside  the  thumb,  does  not  appear  to 
give  many  very  sure  indications. 

Dr.  Gaston  Durville  has  conceived  an  ingenious  em- 
ployment of  a  dynamometer  to  reveal,  and  at  the  same 
time  measure,  the  suggestibility.  Under  the  name  of 
siiggestometer,  he  describes  an  ordinary  medical  dyna- 
mometer, a  simple  ellipsoidal  steel  spring,  provided  on 
one  side  with  a  needle,  on  the  other  with  a  "  scale  of 
sensibility."  This  scale  was  established  after  numer- 
ous experiments  (560),  and  permitted  the  classification 
of  people  into  five  categories,  according  as  their  sensibil- 
ity is  neuropathic,  very  great,  great,  medium,  or  nil. 
The  subject  takes  the  apparatus  in  his  strongest  hand 
and  squeezes  it  with  his  maximum  effort.  After  a  few 
moments  of  rest,  the  suggestion  is  given  him,  during 
almost  a  minute  or  two,  that  his  arm  becomes  weak, 
numb;  and  he  is  then  asked  to  squeeze  the  apparatus 
again.  According  as  the  muscular  force  sinks  to  zero, 
decreases  three-fourths,  one-half,  one-quarter,  or  re- 
mains constant,  he  is  placed  in  one  of  the  five  categories 
indicated. 

Unfortunately,  the  emplo)mient  of  this  apparatus  is 
not  always  practical,  because  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
have  recourse  to  it  without  the  subject's  being  aware  of 
the  proof  to  which  he  is  to  be  submitted,  and  without 
his  giving  his  consent.     It  would  be  necessary  for  us  to 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES     85 

have  a  method  which  would  permit  us  to  recognize 
subjects  without  their  knowledge, 

III 

What  we  need,  then,  is  a  reactive  which  can  be  ap- 
plied easily,  without  the  subject's  knowledge,  almost 
without  attracting  his  attention,  and  which  will  reveal 
his  latent  susceptibility,  positive  or  negative,  with  re- 
gard to  psychical  influences. 

We  should  be  able  thus  to  divide  individuals  into 
good  and  bad  conductors  of  these  influences,  just  as  in 
physics  material  bodies  have  been  divided  into  good 
and  bad  conductors  of  electricity. 

This  reactive  has  been  found  to  exist.  It  was  dis- 
covered by  Dr.  Moutin  (of  Boulogne-sur-Seine),  a 
well-known  observer  and  experimenter  of  the  highest 
order.  Scientists,  however,  are  not  sufficiently  famil- 
iar with  it;  and  physicians,  in  particular,  who  should 
employ  it  constantly,  are  wholly  ignorant  of  its  exist- 
ence, or  know  it  only  vaguely  and  attach  no  importance 
to  it. 

Here,  briefly,  is  the  process  of  Moutin : 

The  experimenter  stands  behind  the  person  in  whom 
he  wishes  to  determine  the  sensibility,  and  applies 
against  his  back,  on  a  level  with  the  shoulder-blades, 
the  palms  of  his  two  hands,  fully  extended,  the  two 
thumbs  meeting  over  one  of  the  vertebrae  of  the  spinal 
column.  After  a  few  seconds  of  application,  the  hands 
are  slowly  drawn  backward.  If  the  person  follows  the 
movement  of  the  hands,  to  which  his  back  seems  to 
adhere,  or  which  appear  to  attract  it  with  an  irresist- 


86     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

ible  force,  he  can  be  considered  as  "  presenting  the  sign 
of  Moutin,''  at  least  in  the  first  degree.  In  a  greater 
degree,  he  is  drawn  and  forced  backward,  even  when 
the  hands  do  not  touch  the  shoulder-blades  and  are 
separated  by  a  distance  of  lo,  20,  30,  or  40  centimeters. 
If  this  application  of  the  hands  be  prolonged,  a  sensa- 
tion of  intense  heat,  almost  of  burning,  will  be  experi- 
enced by  some  individuals.  Also,  if  instead  of  apply- 
ing the  two  hands,  only  the  palm  of  the  right  hand 
be  applied  at  the  nape  of  the  neck,  the  effect  produced 
will  be  essentially  the  same. 

Dr.  Moutin  has  related,  in  his  thesis,  Le  diagnostic 
de  la  suggestihilite,  how  he  discovered  his  process : 

One  day,  in  1878,  he  was  walking  with  a  friend  In 
the  outskirts  of  the  town  of  Orange.  The  two  stopped 
at  the  edge  of  a  field,  and.  In  leaning  over  to  watch 
an  insect.  Dr.  Moutin  unconsciously  put  his  hand  on 
the  back  of  his  friend's  neck.  Suddenly  the  friend  ex- 
claimed: 

"  Take  your  hand  away !  You  are  burning  my  neck 
with  your  cigarette." 

Surprised,  Dr.  Moutin  answered:  *'  But  I  have  no 
cigarette." 

And  after  showing  his  empty  hand,  he  placed  it  once 
again  on  his  friend's  neck. 

"  This,"  said  he,  "  Is  the  position  in  which  we  were 
a  moment  ago." 

"  It  is  strange,"  replied  the  friend,  "  but  I  still  feel 
your  hand  burning  me." 

Removing  his  hand,  Dr.  Moutin,  with  Increasing  sur- 
prise, saw  his  friend  totter,  as  if  he  had  lost  his  equi- 
librium, and  almost  fall  backward. 


^  Si 


O     C   o 


T3  <u 


o 
^  o 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES     87 

Being  already  acquainted  with  hypnotism  and  ani- 
mal magnetism,  he  suspected  the  probable  signification 
of  this  singular  phenomenon,  and  asked  the  brother  of 
his  friend,  the  director  of  a  large  paper  factory,  to  let 
him  try  some  experiments  upon  a  number  of  the  work- 
ers. Two  hundred  subjects,  men  and  women,  were 
put  at  his  disposal.  Out  of  about  fifty  upon  whom  he 
experimented,  thirty  presented,  in  varying  degrees,  the 
same  symptoms  of  attraction,  of  sensations  more  or 
less  abnormal,  etc.,  and  were  thus  revealed  to  be  sug- 
gestible or  hypnotizable  in  different  degrees.  Dr. 
Moutin  was  able  also  to  note  the  opposition,  the 
strongly  characterized  duality,  of  the  individual  reac- 
tions provoked  by  his  process,  and  the  relation  existing 
between  a  distinctly  positive  reaction  and  the  real  sus- 
ceptibility to  suggestion  or  hypnotic  Influence. 

An  objection  to  the  current  employment  of  this 
method  might  be  that,  when  the  person  in  whom  the 
research  Is  made  knows  In  advance  the  object  of  the  ex- 
perimenter, it  Is  possible  for  him  either  to  simulate  or  at 
least  to  exaggerate  the  action,  or,  on  the  contrary,  to 
suppress  it  by  voluntary  resistance.  And  how  can  he 
be  prevented  from  knowing  the  purpose  of  the  opera- 
tion, when  he  sees  that  the  observer  stands  behind  him 
and  places  his  hands  upon  his  shoulder-blades? 

This  objection  loses  its  value  when  the  process  of 
Moutin,  which  should  be  called  the  neurocritic  process, 
is  applied  by  a  physician.  For  he  can  always  combine, 
without  informing  the  patient,  the  application  of  this 
process  with  that  of  the  classical  and  customary  proc- 
esses of  auscultation,  percussion,  palpation,  etc.  Not 
seeing  In  the  neurocritic  process  anything  more  than  a 


88    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

phase  of  a  general  examination  to  which  he  Is  sub- 
mitted, and  not  having  any  reason  to  distinguish  it 
especially  from  the  others,  the  patient  will  react  with 
entire  spontaneity  and  good  faith. 

A  variation  of  this  process,  which  I  recently  discov- 
ered, escapes  this  objection  entirely.  It  may  be  ap- 
plied not  only  to  patients  by  physicians,  but,  to  some 
extent,  to  every  one  and  by  any  one.     It  is  this : 

Standing  face  to  face  with  the  person  with  whom  you 
are  conversing,  place  your  right  hand  on  his  left  shoul- 
der (or  inversely),  either  as  a  gesture  of  friendly  fa- 
miliarity or  under  the  pretext  of  examining  more  closely 
some  part  of  his  features.  Think,  then,  as  strongly  as 
possible  that  he  will  lean  forward  or  backward.  In 
the  well-known  experiment  of  the  pendulum  of  Chev- 
reul,  it  suffices  to  "  think  "  the  movement  of  the  pen- 
dulum in  a  certain  direction;  and  so,  in  order  to  move 
the  subject  unconsciously  in  the  direction  thought,  an 
infinitesimal  push  given  to  the  body  of  an  individual 
whose  nervous  system  is  particularly  sensitive  becomes 
immediately  intensified  a  hundredfold  and  determines 
in  the  subject  an  Irresistible  movement  of  attraction  or 
of  repulsion,  as  if  he  were  a  veritable  living  pendulum. 
This  experiment  will  be  still  more  convincing  If  the 
attraction  or  the  repulsion  continues  to  be  produced 
even  without  contact,  following  the  movements  of  the 
hands  of  the  operator  held  some  centimeters  above  the 
shoulder. 

Can  It  be  concluded  from  this  that  there  exist  in 
human  beings,  from  the  particular  point  of  view  of  par- 
apsychic  susceptibility,  two  opposed  types  of  tempera- 
ment:    (i)  the  moutinien  or  pendular  type,  which  is 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES     89 

that  of  subjects  suggestible  and  hynotizable  in  varying 
degrees;  and  (2)  the  non-moutinien  or  rigid  type,  that 
of  individuals  more  or  less  completely  refractory  to  all 
hypnotic  or  suggestive  influence  ? 

IV 

The  discovery  of  Dr.  Moutin  has  been  very  little 
utilized,  except  by  professional  hypnotists  and  mesmer- 
ists, whom  it  served  to  show  quickly  in  a  mass  of  spec- 
tators the  subjects  susceptible  of  experimentation. 

But  it  has  a  much  greater  importance,  if  we  con- 
sider the  part  that  it  may  play  in  psychical  research; 
not  to  mention  other  manifold  applications  that  could 
be  made  of  it,  whether  to  ordinary  psychology,  to  his- 
tory, pedagogy,  to  the  diverse  moral  sciences,  or  to 
psycho-therapeutics  and  medicine  in  general. 

Viewed  as  an  instrument  of  research,  the  process  of 
Moutin  opens  to  those  who  employ  it  methodically  an 
unlimited  field  of  experimentation,  as  it  permits  them 
to  find  an  indefinite  number  of  subjects  in  a  manner  ex- 
tremely simple  and  rapid.  A  few  seconds  of  light 
pressure  of  the  hand  upon  the  back  or  upon  the  shoul- 
der suffices  to  reveal  the  parapsychic  potentialities,  pos- 
itive or  negative,  of  any  person  whatsoever,  thus  pre- 
venting delay  in  the  preliminary  attempts  at  hypnotiza- 
tion,  which  are  often  unfruitful,  and  are  fatiguing  for 
the  operator  as  well  as  for  the  subject. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  problems  that  arises  at 
the  beginning  of  psychical  research  is  this : 

In  what  proportion  are  individuals  apt  to  present 
the  parapsychic  phenomena  —  at  least  under  the  most 
elementary   forms,    suggestion   and   hypnotism  —  en- 


90    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

countered  In  the  human  race?  And  how  Is  this  apti- 
tude apportioned  among  them  according  to  sex,  age, 
temperament,  state  of  health  or  illness,  etc.  ? 

It  is,  we  believe,  through  the  general  and  systematic 
employment  of  the  process  of  Moutin,  only,  that  the 
establishment  of  statistics  bearing  upon  a  great  num- 
ber of  individuals  will  give  us  an  exact  solution  to  the 
problem. 

Even,  however,  at  the  same  time  that  this  process 
constitutes  for  researchers  a  valuable  instrument  of 
study,  It  can  and  must  Itself  be  for  them  the  object  of 
a  special  study;  for  It  opens  up  a  whole  series  of  prob- 
lems to  which  the  experimental  method  appears  to  be 
directly  applicable. 

What  causes  this  singular  phenomenon  of  the  ap* 
parent  attraction  of  one  individual  for  another? 

If  it  is  the  sign  of  suggestibility.  In  what  measure  is 
it  also  the  effect? 

Is  it  exclusively  a  function  of  the  individuality  of  the 
subject,  or  does  it  depend  equally  upon  that  of  the 
operator? 

Is  it  capable  of  undergoing  variations;  and,  If  so, 
under  the  influence  of  what  causes? 

Besides  the  indications  which  It  gives  of  parapsychic 
susceptibility,  does  it  produce  in  the  nervous  state  or 
in  the  mental  state  of  the  individuals,  modifications 
more  or  less  profound,  more  or  less  durable,  although 
perhaps  latent,  that  It  would  be  possible  to  bring  into 
evidence  by  the  employment  of  appropriate  means? 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  solution  of  these  dif- 
ferent problems  would  throw  a  bright  light  upon  the 
question,  even  if  controversed,  of  the  nature  and  the 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES     91 

rapports  of  suggestion,  hypnotism,  and  animal  mag- 
netism. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  will  be  understood  that  knowl- 
edge of  the  different  degrees  of  suggestibiHty  presents 
considerable  interest  for  ordinary  psychology,  history, 
and  in  general  for  all  the  moral  sciences,  if  it  be  re- 
flected that,  contrary  to  common  opinion,  suggestibility 
is  not  an  exceptional  attribute  of  some  rare  subjects, 
but  exists  in  a  very  great  number,  perhaps  even  in  the 
greater  number,  of  human  beings. 

Its  importance  is  no  less  from  the  point  of  view  of 
pedagogy.  *'  Logical  education,"  said  Dr.  Berillon, 
"  would  consist  in  utilizing  the  best  part  of  the  mental 
malleability  —  that  is  to  say,  of  the  suggestibility; 
and  in  order  to  obtain  that  result  it  would  be  well  to 
exercise  over  the  minds  only  such  pressure  as  is  strictly 
necessary.  We  should  take  into  account  the  interest 
that  educators  would  have  in  knowing  of  processes  per- 
mitting them  to  appreciate  precisely  the  mental  malle- 
ability of  each  of  their  pupils.  The  result  would  be, 
certainly,  the  proportioning  of  the  pressure  upon  the 
mind  of  the  child  in  accordance  with  the  extent  of  his 
resistance.  What  sterile  efforts,  what  erroneous  judg- 
ments, and  also  what  inconsiderate  chastisements  would 
thus  be  averted !  " 

Similarly,  from  the  social  and  juridical  points  of 
view,  the  question  of  criminal  responsibility,  and  that 
of  human  testimony,  change  their  aspects  singularly 
according  to  the  extent  that  one  knows  or  ignores 
suggestibility  In  human  beings. 

From  the  medical  point  of  view,  we  have  only  to 
consider  the  enormous  part  played  by  suggestion  and 


92    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

autosuggestion  in  both  the  production  and  the  curing  of 
ills,  to  understand  how  much  it  means  to  the  physician 
to  have  a  practical  method  for  diagnosing  the  suggesti- 
bility of  patients.  If  there  is  an  exaggeration  to  pre- 
tend, as  the  School  of  Nancy  was  inclined  to  do,  that 
suggestion  is  the  sole  agent,  or  even  the  principal 
agent,  of  all  therapeutic  efficacy.  It  must  no  less  be 
recognized,  with  Charcot,  that  In  a  great  number  of 
patients  "  the  faith  that  cures  "  is  the  best  of  remedies. 
The  question,  then,  that  all  physicians  must  raise  each 
time  they  find  themselves  in  the  presence  of  a  new 
patient  is  this: 

"  Does  he  belong  to  the  class  of  Individuals  capable 
of  being  cured  or  helped  by  psychical  treatment;  or  is 
he,  on  the  contrary,  of  those  with  whom  medicine  or 
diet  is  the  only  efficient  remedy?  " 

Knowledge  of  the  process  of  Moutin  will  permit  that 
question  to  be  answered  Immediately.  According  as 
to  whether  the  patient  is,  or  is  not,  a  moutinien,  the 
diagnosis  and  the  treatment  of  his  affection  must  be 
undertaken  In  a  wholly  different  fashion. 

For  the  same  reason,  therefore,  that  it  Is  helpful  or 
necessary  to  examine  a  patient  to  learn  the  state  of  his 
lungs,  his  heart,  his  liver,  etc.,  by  the  classical  processes 
of  auscultation,  percussion,  etc..  It  would  be  equally 
helpful  and  necessary  to  examine  him  by  the  neiirocritic 
process  to  learn  the  state  of  his  nervous  sensibility. 
And,  as  we  have  previously  stated,  the  two  examina- 
tions should  be  made  at  the  same  time. 

The  process  of  Moutin  must  be  viewed  as  a  valuable 
acquisition  to  medical  science.  It  deserves  to  have  a 
place  in  semelology  beside  the  classical  signs,  the  sign 


OUR  LATENT  PSYCHIC  FACULTIES     93 

of  Sheyne-Stockes,  of  Romberg,  of  Lasegue,  of  Kernig, 
etc.,  which  have  immortalized  the  names  of  those  who 
discovered  them. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HYPNOTISM,    OR   ARTIFICIAL    HYPNOSIS 


The  importance  that  Charcot  and  the  School  of  the 
Salpetriere  attributed  to  knowledge  of  the  different 
hypnotic  states  is  well  known.  The  increasing  pre- 
dominance of  the  adverse  doctrines  of  the  School  of 
Nancy  singularly  weakened  it  in  the  opinion  of  the  con- 
temporaneous medical  world,  it  is  true ;  but  it  may  be 
asked  whether  this  knowledge,  duly  proved  and  gen- 
eralized, does  not  remain,  after  all,  one  of  the  guiding 
principles  to  which  all  those  who  are  endeavoring  to 
place  the  study  of  parapsychic  phenomena  in  the  field 
of  positive  science  must  necessarily  have  recourse. 

Charcot  seemed  to  be  a  partizan  of  the  idea  that 
hypnotism  —  or  hypnosis,  as  it  should  be  called  — 
constitutes  a  particular  state,  sui  generis,  of  the  nervous 
system  and  of  the  entire  human  organism,  provoked  by 
certain  agents  or  processes  and  defined  by  a  certain 
number  of  characteristics  more  or  less  closely  connected 
among  themselves.  This  state  differs  from  the  state 
of  wakefulness  —  called  the  normal  state  —  and  also 
from  the  state  of  sleep,  although  it  partakes  in  certain 
respects  of  the  characteristics  of  both.  It  is  itself  sus- 
ceptible of  assuming  different  forms,  which  may  be  con- 
sidered as  secondary  hypnotic  states,  each  having  its 

special  excitator  and  its  special  characteristics,  but  de- 

94 


HYPNOTISM  95 

pending  evidently  upon  common  conditions  and  sub- 
stituting one  another  with  a  certain  facihty. 

The  principal  secondary  forms  are  three  in  number : 
(i)  catalepsy,  (2)  somnambulism,  and  (3)  lethargy. 
They  can  present  themselves  spontaneously  during  cer- 
tain forms  of  illness,  or  under  the  influence  of  certain 
physical  agents,  or  they  can  be  made  to  appear  artifi- 
cially. It  is  for  hypnosis  thus  produced  —  artificial  or 
experimental  hypnosis  —  that  usage  seems  especially 
to  reserve  the  name  hypnotism. 

Reduced  to  these  terms,  the  theory  of  the  School  of 
the  Salpetriere  seems  to  be  a  simple  exposition  of  the 
facts,  and  the  objections  which  are  ordinarily  made  do 
not  weaken  it.  Charcot's  mistake  was  to  claim  that 
provoked  hypnosis  manifests  itself  always  under  one  of 
these  three  clearly  defined  forms:  catalepsy,  somnam- 
bulism, or  lethargy.  It  is  palpably  evident  that  it  is 
often  found  also  under  intermediary  forms,  which  do 
not  enter  completely  into  any  of  these  three  classical 
forms. 

A  still  graver  mistake  has  been  to  believe  that  the 
determining  conditions  of  the  various  hypnotic  states 
and  the  invariable  order  of  their  succession  proceeded 
from  quasi-mathematical  laws.  Over  this  point  the 
critic  of  the  School  of  Nancy  seems  to  us  to  have  well 
established  the  error  of  the  School  of  the  Salpetriere. 
But  it  is  no  less  true  that  hypnosis  constitutes  a  special 
state,  as  distinct  from  the  state  of  normal  waking  as 
that  state  is  distinct  from  sleep ;  and  that  catalepsy,  som- 
nambulism, and  lethargy,  in  whatever  way  they  may  be 
produced,  present  to  us  three  distinct  modalities  of  hyp- 
nosis, responding  to  three  types  sufficiently  definite  and 


96    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

constant.  For  there  is  an  essential  difference  between 
the  rigid  attitude  of  the  cataleptic,  the  independent 
motions  of  the  somnambulist,  and  the  complete  mus- 
cular inertia  of  the  lethargic. 

It  is  true  that  from  the  philosophic,  or  scientific, 
point  of  view,  it  can  be  claimed  that  all  things  in  nature 
are  continued  and  mingle  with  one  another,  in  such 
a  way  that  all  the  separations,  all  the  distinctions  that 
we  place  between  them  are  necessarily  more  or  less 
relative,  arbitrary,  artificial.  Who  could  say  exactly 
where,  in  the  solar  spectrum,  any  one  color  —  violet, 
blue,  green,  yellow,  orange,  red,  indigo  —  ends,  and 
where  the  following  color  begins? 

Even  the  ancients  knew  this  method  of  reasoning; 
they  called  it  "  bald-headed  argument  "  or  "  quantitive 
argument."  For  instance:  Here  is  a  thick  head  of 
hair;  one  hair  is  pulled  out,  then  another,  then  still  an- 
other; at  that  moment  could  it  be  said  that  the  head  has 
become  bald?  One  grain  of  wheat  certainly  does  not 
make  a  pile,  nor  two  grains  of  wheat,  nor  three,  nor 
four.     How  many  grains  are  necessary  to  make  a  pile  ? 

Similarly,  when  a  man  goes  to  sleep,  it  Is  impossible 
to  indicate  at  what  precise  moment  the  sleep  has  re- 
placed the  waking  state ;  between  the  two  extreme  states 
there  can  always  be  imagined  an  Infinity  of  intermedi- 
ary states  by  which  the  passage  is  made  from  one  of 
these  extremes  to  the  other. 

But  all  this  specious  reasoning  —  which  perhaps 
could  be  qualified  as  sophism  —  does  not  abolish  the 
fact  that  there  are.  In  nature,  decided  differences  and 
irreducible  oppositions  of  which  we  must  take  account 
if  we  would  see  clearly  In  our  minds,  and  more  so  still 


HYPNOTISM  97 

if  we  would  adapt  our  practise  to  the  real  world  with- 
out. 

This  question  apropos  of  hypnotism  is,  moreover,  of 
a  very  general  order,  and  is  found,  under  other  forms, 
in  all  or  almost  all  branches  of  science.  It  is  thus  that 
physics  recognizes  three  different  states  of  matter :  the 
solid  state,  the  liquid  state,  and  the  gaseous  state, 
each  of  which  is  characterized  by  a  definite  number  of 
properties.  To  these  three  states  scientific  researchers 
have  added,  perhaps,  a  fourth:  Sir  William  Crookes 
has,  indeed,  spoken  of  a  fourth  state  of  matter,  which 
he  has  called  the  radiant  state.  And  it  can  well  be  sup- 
posed that  the  list  of  possible  states  of  matter  contains 
even  others.  There  is  also,  very  assuredly,  between 
the  solid  state  and  the  liquid  state,  and  between  the 
liquid  state  and  the  gaseous  state,  a  certain  intermediary 
margin  where  they  meet,  are  continued  and  mingled. 
However,  it  must  be  recognized  that  the  distinction  of 
the  three  states  —  solid,  liquid,  gaseous  —  is  one  of  the 
indispensable  bases  of  physics.  And  chemistry,  biol- 
ogy, etc.,  would  present  considerations  of  an  analogous 
nature. 

II 

So  far  we  have  considered  only  the  knowledge  of  the 
state  as  in  its  rapport  with  hypnosis.  Hypnosis,  how- 
ever, is  itself  but  a  species  of  a  more  extensive  genus 
—  the  genus  of  parapsychic  phenomena.  It  will  be 
well,  then,  to  generalize  this  knowledge  by  applying  it 
to  all  these  phenomena.  In  other  words,  we  must  ad- 
mit that  in  the  nervous  system  and  the  organism  of 
human  beings  there  exist  a  certain  number  of  states 
more    or   less    distinctly   characterized,    which,    once 


98    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

brought  into  being,  render  parapsychic  phenomena  of 
many  sorts  possible.  It  is  these  different  states  that 
should  first  be  determined  and  studied  if  we  would 
place  the  psychical  sciences  henceforward  on  a  solid 
basis. 

We  can  indicate  here  only  a  few  of  these  states. 

Can  the  phenomena  observed  during  seances  of 
spiritism  be  fully  identified  with  the  phenomena  of  hyp- 
notism? 

This  is  a  very  obscure  problem,  which  is  still  far 
from  being  solved.  Without  affirming  the  identity  of 
the  two  states,  however,  we  can  at  least  show  the 
strong  analogies  between  the  trance  of  mediums  and 
the  hypnosis  of  subjects.  Just  as  the  different  hypnotic 
phenomena  do  not  appear  in  subjects  until  they  have 
been  put,  by  appropriate  means,  into  a  particular  state, 
so,  it  would  seem,  the  special  faculties  of  mediums  are 
not  manifested  until  they  also  are  put  into  a  state  that 
is  certainly  not  their  normal  state  —  by  normal  is 
meant  thefr  customary  state  outside  of  spiritistic 
seances.  In  many  of  them  this  state  is  distinctly  ap- 
parent, and  resembles  strongly  the  state  of  somnam- 
bulism. In  others  it  is  latent  or,  so  to  speak  larve;  but 
we  know  that  this  is  sometimes  true  also  of  somnam- 
bulistic hypnosis.  A  subject  may  have  all  the  appear- 
ances of  being  fully  awake,  in  an  entirely  normal  state ; 
but  if  he  be  studied  closely.  It  can  be  recognized  that 
he  is  In  reality  In  that  condition  which  sometimes  is 
called  a  "  second  state." 

Similarly,  under  the  Influence  of  very  strong  physical 
and  mental  excitations,  there  are  produced  in  certain 
individuals  singular  states  which  well  seem  to  belong  to 


HYPNOTISM  99 

the  category  of  those  we  are  now  considering.  By 
movements  and  cries  indefinitely  repeated,  the  Ais- 
saouas  manage,  it  is  said,  to  put  their  nervous  system 
in  such  a  state  of  insensibihty  that  they  can  support  with 
impunity  burns  and  wounds  which,  in  ordinary  condi- 
tions, would  be  mortal.  And  it  is  claimed  that  the 
fakirs  of  India  owe  to  the  employment  of  a  system  of 
ascetic  means  —  fasting,  respiratory  exercises,  etc. — 
the  development  of  supernormal  faculties  evidently 
connected  with  a  special  state  of  their  nerves  and  their 
organism.  The  history  of  the  Camisards  of  Cevennes, 
of  the  Convulsionaries  of  the  Cemetery  of  St.  Medard, 
shows  us  also  that  religious  exaltation  can  produce  In 
crowds  a  state  generating  the  most  extraordinary  and 
varied  parapsychic  phenomena.  It  would  be  Interest- 
ing, from  this  point  of  view,  to  Investigate  to  what  ex- 
tent the  ecstasy,  the  prophetic  Inspiration,  etc. —  phe- 
nomena very  frequent  in  the  history  of  all  religions  — 
can  be  compared  to  the  states  previously  enumerated. 

Certain  morbid  causes  provoke  the  apparition  of 
similar  states.  The  visions  of  Mohammed  are  ex- 
plained, at  least  in  part  perhaps,  by  epilepsy,  of  which 
he  often  had  attacks.  It  Is  known  that  In  epilepsy, 
and  perhaps  also  In  some  other  nervous  affections,  the 
patients  are  subject  to  fits  which  can  last  for  weeks 
and  even  months,  and  return  periodically;  and  during 
these  fits  they  talk  and  act  with  all  the  appearances  of 
the  normal  state,  but  without  any  consciousness  of  their 
usual  personality — as  If  another  self  had  taken.  In 
them,  the  place  of  the  old. 

Dr.  Azam,  of  Bordeaux,  has  described  In  detail  the 
singular  alternation  of  two  distinct  personalities  In  one 


loo    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

of  his  patients,  Felida,  famous  in  the  annals  of  morbid 
psychology.  It  is  impossible  to  understand  this  alter- 
nation unless  we  suppose  that  each  of  these  two  person- 
alities is  linked  to  a  particular  nervous  and  organic 
state  which  makes  it  appear  or  disappear  according 
to  its  own  vicissitudes. 

Dr.  Pierre  Janet  reports  the  adventure  of  a  young 
man  who,  without  apparent  consciousness,  suddenly 
abandoned  his  family,  having  completely  forgotten  all 
his  past.  He  walked  from  Paris  to  Melun,  following 
many  different  trades,  and  finally  recovered  his  normal 
state  three  months  later  in  Auvergne,  in  the  company 
of  an  old  plate-mender,  wholly  incapable  of  remember- 
ing how  he  had  got  there,  or  anything  that  had  hap- 
pened during  the  interval. 

These  examples  are  sufficient  to  give  an  idea  of  the 
multiplicity  and  the  diversity  of  the  parapsychic  states ; 
for  it  is  not  our  intention  here  to  give  a  complete  list  of 
them,  nor  even  to  attempt  their  classification.  Our 
sole  object  is  to  show  that  such  states  do  exist,  and 
to  make  the  reader  understand  how  interesting  and 
necessary  it  would  be  to  submit  them  to  systematic 
study. 

This  study  should  begin  with  the  hypnotic  states,  in- 
asmuch as  they  are  unquestionably  those  which  we  can 
most  easily  produce  and  modify  at  will,  and  those 
which,  consequently,  lend  themselves  best  to  the  appli- 
cation of  the  experimental  method. 

Ill 
First  of  all,  it  is  important  to  forestall  a  misunder- 
standing which  may  be  due  largely  to  the  imperfection 
of  our  technical  vocabulary. 


1    '»  •       > 


»9    I 


HYPNOTISM  loi 

As  waking  and  sleeping  are  the  two  normal  states 
which  in  the  life  of  man  succeed  each  other,  so  it  is  that 
these  two  states  have  become  for  us  the  means,  or  gage, 
by  which  we  instinctively  endeavor  to  describe  other 
states.  Thus,  instead  of  considering  all  those  states 
which  are  different  from  ordinary  waking  and  sleeping, 
as  constituting  a  third  state,  susceptible  of  assuming 
several  and  various  forms,  we  connect  them  with  sleep 
in  giving  them  the  terms  hypnosis,  hypnotism,  somnam- 
bulism, etc.,  which  imply  the  idea  of  sleep  because  of 
their  Greek  and  Latin  roots. 

Of  a  man  in  the  hypnotic  state  it  is  commonly  said 
that  "  he  is  asleep  ";  and  that  "  he  wakes  "  when  he 
comes  out  of  the  hypnotic  state.  To  *'  hypnotize  '* 
some  one,  and  to  "  put  him  to  sleep,"  are  two  expres- 
sions which  are  used  indifferently,  one  for  the  other. 
For  this  reason  there  is  a  general  tendency  to  regard 
hypnosis  as  a  kind  of  sleep,  and  therefore  to  attach 
undue  importance  to  the  characteristics  in  which  it 
resembles  sleep. 

For  this  same  reason,  and  especially  among  the  par- 
tizans  of  the  School  of  Nancy  —  by  whom  suggestion, 
or  rather  suggestibility,  is  considered  a  natural,  funda- 
mental, permanent  property  of  all  human  beings,  the 
key  to  all  hypnotic,  and  undoubtedly  also  parapsychic, 
phenomena  —  there  is  a  tendency  to  disregard  all  sig- 
nification and  all  value  of  the  hypnoidal  characteristics 
of  hypnosis,  these  being  considered  but  the  accidental 
effects  of  suggestion.  For  those  who  have  this  point 
of  view,  hypnotic  sleep  is  in  reality  nothing  but  natural 
sleep  provoked  by  suggestion :  if  the  operator  had  not 
this  preconceived  idea  that  his  subject  must  sleep,  and 


102    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

had  not  imposed  it  upon  him,  or  caused  him  to  incul- 
cate the  idea  in  himself,  all  the  phenomena  called  hyp- 
notic could  be  just  as  well  produced  in  the  waking  state. 

Many  unnecessary  words  and  controversies  would 
be  avoided  if  it  could  be  reahzed  that  the  hypnotic  state 
is  neither  a  waking  state  nor  a  sleeping  state,  but  a 
third  state  and  of  multiform  expressions.  This  third 
state  blends  in  various  proportions  the  characteristics 
of  sleep  and  of  waking,  adding  other  characteristics 
which  belong  exclusively  to  it,  the  principal  of  these 
being  an  abnormal  suggestibility,  certainly  very  differ- 
ent, whatever  the  School  of  Nancy  may  say,  from  the 
normal  suggestibility  common  to  all  human  beings. 

Thus,  in  conclusion,  the  different  states  through 
which  the  nervous  system  passes  may  constitute  a  sort 
of  spectrum,  of  which  the  two  end  colors  are  the  wak- 
ing and  sleeping  states,  corresponding  to  the  red  and 
the  violet  of  the  solar  spectrum;  and  our  mental  life  is 
colored  alternately  by  one  or  the  other  of  these  two 
extremities.  But  there  exists  in  the  interval,  and  per- 
haps also  beyond  the  extremities  of  this  spectrum,  a 
multitude  of  other  colors,  of  other  shades,  with  which 
our  life  is  sometimes  tinted  in  an  accidental  and  more 
or  less  transitory  way,  under  the  action  of  causes  still 
undetermined.  The  hypnotic  and  magnetic  processes 
disengage  and  firmly  establish  certain  of  these  colors, 
normally  latent  or  fugitive,  and  permit  us  to  study  them 
experimentally. 

We  already  have  indicated  the  three  hypnotic  states 
generally  admitted:  catalepsy,  somnambulism,  and 
lethargy;  but  there  exists  also  a   fourth.     It  is  that 


HYPNOTISM  103 

which  certain  scientific  writers  have  called  the  state  of 
fascination  or  the  state  of  credulity. 

The  subject  in  this  state  presents  all  the  appearances 
of  being  awake.  His  eyes  are  open ;  he  has  complete 
liberty  of  his  movements;  if  his  arm  is  raised  it  falls 
again  of  its  own  accord;  and  his  sensibility  usually  re- 
mains normal.  But  he  does  not  use  his  mental  facul- 
ties in  a  normal  way.  He  Is  Incapable  of  evoking 
voluntarily  any  recollection :  ask  him  his  name,  his  ad- 
dress, what  he  did  the  previous  day,  he  cannot  answer. 
And  he  becomes  extremely  suggestible :  he  does  not  con- 
trol either  his  sensations  or  his  acts,  but  believes  or 
does  blindly  all  that  he  is  commanded  to  believe  or  to 
do.  Often,  but  not  always,  once  brought  out  of  this 
state,  he  retains  no  memory  of  It. 

We  believe,  however,  that  beyond  these  four  states 
there  exists  a  state  still  more  superficial,  so  slight,  so 
little  characterized,  that  we  have  long  doubted  its  real- 
ity. It  might  be  called  the  state  of  torpor  or  the 
state  of  passivity. 

The  subjects  who  exhibit  this  state  are  incapable  of 
being  led  farther.  When  submitted  to  the  hypnotic 
processes  of  the  fixation  of  the  gaze,  passes,  verbal  sug- 
gestion, they  appear  not  to  feel  any  effect  whatsoever. 
Their  eyes  remain  open  Indefinitely;  they  can  move 
their  limbs  at  will.  Sensations  or  acts  may  be  sug- 
gested to  them;  but  they  appear  to  feel  none  of  the 
sensations,  and  they  do  none  of  the  acts.  Yet  they  are 
not  in  their  normal  state.  In  the  first  place,  their 
thought  Is  arrested,  so  to  speak.  If  they  are  asked  of 
what    they    are    thinking,    they    invariably    answer: 


104  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

"  Nothing."  And  this  state  of  mental  farniente  is, 
they  claim,  most  agreeable.  Close  their  eyelids,  and 
they  remain  closed,  as  if  they  had  lost  all  power  to  open 
them.  Their  limbs  obey  the  slightest  impulsion  im- 
parted to  them,  and  remain  motionless  in  the  most  un- 
comfortable or  the  most  ridiculous  of  attitudes,  with- 
out the  subject's  seeming  to  have  any  idea  of  changing 
them.  For  hours  at  a  time,  the  subjects  lend  them- 
selves to  all  the  manipulations  that  it  pleases  the  opera- 
tor to  devise;  and  they  apparently  resent  nothing. 

This  state  of  torpor  is  dissipated  with  extreme  rapid- 
ity, leaving  behind  it  quite  faithful  recollections.  Be- 
cause of  its  wholly  negative  character,  however,  it  is 
not  strange  that  it  has  remained  unperceived  by  the 
majority  of  observers. 

One  can  realize  the  extent  and  the  complexity  of  the 
field  of  study  offered  to  scientists  by  the  parapsychic 
phenomena.  After  having  enumerated  and  defined 
the  principal  species,  each  of  them  should  be  analyzed 
according  to  three  successive  periods : 

1.  Its  preparation. 

2.  Its  constitution. 

3.  Its  completion. 

The  preparation  or  incubation  of  a  psychical  state 
can  be  extremely  rapid,  it  can  appear  to  be  even  in- 
stantaneous, and  it  also  can  last  a  long  time.  As  an 
effect  of  repetition  or  habit,  this  initial  period  tends 
always  to  shorten  itself.  In  many  cases  it  might  be 
said  that,  in  order  to  produce  the  state,  a  certain  quan- 
tum of  energy  of  a  special  nature  may  be  necessary, 


HYPNOTISM  105 

just  as  zero  (Centigrade)  or  one  hundred  degrees  of 
heat  are  necessary  to  freeze  water  or  to  make  it  boil. 
When  this  quantum  is  attained,  and  only  then,  the  state 
is  wholly  constituted. 

It  is  only  after  a  certain  number  of  passes  that  the 
subject  enters  into  the  somnambulistic  state.  The  in- 
sensibility of  the  ATssaoua  does  not  reach  its  climax  un- 
til he  excites  himself  a  sufficiently  long  time  and  with 
sufficient  intensity.  Usually,  at  the  moment  when  the 
state  begins  to  appear,  the  observer  is  informed  by 
some  apparent  sign  —  the  eyes  of  the  subject  entering 
into  hypnosis  close,  his  chest  heaves,  he  sighs  deeply, 
etc.  But  sometimes  the  state  is  produced  insensibly, 
and  already  exists  without  anything  having  occurred 
to  make  its  presence  suspected.  The  operator,  be- 
lieving that  he  has  not  yet  produced  any  result,  pro- 
longs the  fixation  of  gaze,  increases  the  passes,  until 
some  accidental  circumstance  shows  him  that  the  sub- 
ject has  already  been  for  some  time  In  the  hypnotic 
state. 

In  what  does  it  consist,  this  constitution  of  the  para- 
psychic  state  —  sometimes  slow,  sometimes  instantane- 
ous and  unexpected? 

That  is  an  extremely  difficult  problem  to  solve. 
When  the  state  is  once  existent,  we  can  easily  estab- 
lish and  describe  its  exterior  manifestations  (although 
many  of  them  escape  us  if  we  do  not  know  or  do  not 
possess  the  proper  reactives  to  arouse  them) ;  but  we 
do  not  penetrate  its  intimate  nature. 

When  a  subject  is  somnambulistic,  for  example,  that 
which  is  of  the  greatest  importance  Is  not  the  different 
phenomena  by  which  this  state  Is  revealed  —  the  clos- 


io6    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

ing  of  the  eyelids,  insensibility  of  the  teguments,  extreme 
suggestibility,  etc.  It  Is  something  we  do  not  see, 
something  we  cannot  see:  the  particular  state  of  the 
brain  and  of  the  nerves,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
distribution  and  the  tension  of  the  nerve  force,  of  the 
chemical  and  vital  activity,  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  etc.  It  is  all  these  internal  and  unknown  fac- 
tors which  constitute,  properly  speaking,  the  parapsy- 
chic  state,  which  are  the  effective  substratum;  and  not 
a  certain  more  or  less  impressive  external  phenomenon, 
such  as  suggestion,  that  "  choice-bit ''  of  the  School  of 
Nancy,  which  imagines  that  all  questions  can  be  an- 
swered by  this  abstract  word,  just  as  the  scholastics 
Imagined  that  all  things  could  be  explained  by  their 
entities  and  their  occult  powers. 

As  long  as  this  substratum  subsists  without  notable 
change,  the  state  continues;  immediately  that  the  sub- 
stratum ceases  to  be,  or  is  modified  In  its  essential  ele- 
ments, the  state  vanishes,  is  resolved  into  a  different 
state. 

How  many  patient  and  minute  researches  still  re- 
main to  be  undertaken  in  the  psychical  sciences  in  order 
to  elucidate  these  problems  I 


CHAPTER  VIII 

suggestion:  as  a  fact  and  as  an  hypothesis 


The  work  of  the  School  of  Nancy  has  definitely  put 
beyond  all  doubt  the  important  role  that  suggestion 
plays  in  the  greater  part  of  the  parapsychic  phenomena. 

That  suggestion  is  a  fact,  is  a  point  already  acquired 
to  science;  but  we  have  yet  to  understand,  in  an  abso- 
lutely definite  and  precise  way,  the  nature  and  the  con- 
ditions of  this  fact.  We  have  yet  to  determine,  with 
suflicient  rigor,  the  cases  in  which  suggestion  intervenes, 
without  any  possible  doubt  as  to  its  effective  presence, 
and  the  cases  in  which  this  presence  is  simply  supposed 
as  the  more  or  less  true  explanation  or  interpretation. 
In  other  words,  we  must  determine  when  suggestion  is 
really  a  fact,  immediately  proved  by  its  very  consta- 
tation,  and  when  it  is  simply  an  hypothesis,  of  which 
the  proof  remains  to  be  made. 

II 
It  is  Important,  first  of  all,  to  specify  precisely  what 
must  be  understood  by  suggestion,  in  the  particular 
order  of  researches  which  we  are  now  considering;  for 
the  term  can  be  understood  in  many  ways. 

As  we  have  shown  in  Our  Hidden  Forces,  there  is 
suggestion  each  time  that  one  individual  evokes  — 
usually  by  word  —  in  the  mind  of  another  individual,  an 

107 


io8    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

idea  that  would  not  have  occurred  to  him  in  the  natural 
course  of  his  thoughts,  an  idea  capable  of  influencing 
his  sentiments  or  his  conduct. 

But  in  this  sense  one  cannot  by  any  means  foresee 
the  final  effect  of  the  idea  thus  evoked.  It  may  be 
that  it  will  determine  sentiments  and  actions  conform- 
ing to  it.  It  may  be,  also,  that  it  will  be  deflected, 
either  immediately  or  after  examination,  by  the  person 
to  whom  it  is  suggested.  But  in  either  of  these  cases 
the  word  does  not  imply  necessarily  the  idea  of  an 
irresistible  influence. 

On  the  contrary,  the  word  suggestion  implies  an  in- 
voluntary or  automatic  obedience  of  the  person  to  the 
idea  which  has  been  suggested  to  him;  and  the  re- 
markable part  of  the  phenomenon  is  precisely  this  im- 
possibility when  the  person  is  found  not  to  do  or  not  to 
believe  what  is  said  to  him. 

From  this  comes  the  name  subject,  generally  given  to 
the  individual  thus  suggestioned,  to  indicate  the  state 
of  subjection  in  which  he  is  actually  placed  toward 
the  one  who  gives  him  a  suggestion  of  this  nature. 
Also,  we  have  the  name  hypotaxy  (literally:  subordina- 
tion, submission)  given  by  Durand  de  Gros  to  the  sup- 
posed state  of  the  nervous  system  which  permits  of 
this  forced  obedience  of  the  subject  to  the  suggestion. 

There  would  be  suggestion  in  this  sense  if  I  were  to 
say  to  a  person,  for  instance :  "  In  five  minutes  your 
legs  will  not  be  able  to  support  you;  you  will  fall  to 
your  knees,"  and  he  would  fall,  in  spite  of  his  incredu- 
lity and  his  resistance.  Or,  "  That  chair  attracts  you ; 
you  will  be  forced  to  go  to  it  and  sit  down,"  and  he 
would  go.     Or,  "  You  have  forgotten  your  name,  your 


SUGGESTION  109 

profession,  your  address,"  and  he  could  not  remember 
them.  Or,  "  You  are  very  warm,  very  cold;  you  are 
about  to  laugh,  to  cry,  to  run,"  and  he  experienced  all 
these  sensations.  Or,  "  You  are  going  to  sleep  —  to 
sleep  !  "  and  he  fell  asleep. 

However  singular  these  phenomena  may  appear  to 
those  who  have  never  witnessed  them,  it  is  not  possible 
to  doubt  their  reality.  Of  course,  in  some  particular 
cases,  it  can  evidently  be  asked  if  the  individual  is  really 
suggestioned  or  if  he  is  not  simulating  suggestion;  but 
this  would  be  to  advance  skepticism  so  far  as  to  pre- 
tend, with  a  certain  contemporary  neurologist,  that  one 
cannot  be  sure  that  there  was  ever  any  case  of  authentic 
suggestion. 

In  order  to  distinguish  suggestion  thus  comprised 
from  ordinary  suggestion,  it  is  often  called  hypnotic 
suggestion. 

Ordinary  suggestion  —  that  which  the  individual 
can  normally  resist,  or  else  which  he  obeys  because  of 
a  more  or  less  deliberate  consent  or  as  an  effect  of  his 
credulity  and  his  natural  docility  —  is  produced  in  the 
waking  state,  while  he  is  fully  conscious  and  has  com- 
plete use  of  all  his  faculties. 

Hypnotic  suggestion,  on  the  contrary, —  that  which 
the  subject  cannot  resist,  even  if  he  should  have  the 
desire  to  do  so,  and  which  he  obeys  outside  of  all  delib- 
erate consent,  as  the  effect  of  a  credulity  and  a  docility 
in  some  way  artificial  and  abnormal  —  is  produced  dur- 
ing hypnosis,  or  during  an  apparent  waking  state  more 
or  less  fundamentally  analogous  to  hypnosis. 

From  this  point  of  view,  the  characteristic  of  the 
second  kind  of  suggestion  would  be  its  liaison  with  a 


no    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

state  or  disposition  sui  generis  of  the  nervous  system, 
a  hypnotic  state  or  disposition.  In  other  words,  sug- 
gestion thus  comprised  would  be  a  function  of  hypno- 
tism, which  could  then  be  defined,  at  least  partially: 
"  A  state  which  develops  a  special  and  an  absolutely 
automatic  and  irresistible  suggestibility." 

In  order  to  define  hypnotism  more  completely,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  be  able  to  characterize  it  in  itself, 
disregarding  all  relation  with  suggestion  and  suggesti- 
bility; but  in  the  actual  state  of  our  researches,  we  do 
not  yet  possess  a  sufficiently  complete  knowledge  of  its 
characteristics  and  its  effects  to  be  able  to  establish  this 
definition. 

The  name  given  to  it,  and  which  likens  it  to  sleep, 
shows  that  it  is  generally  conceived  as  "  a  state  of  tor- 
por or  of  cerebral  stupor,  when  the  greater  part  of  the 
superior  functions  are  suspended  or  inhibitive,"  while 
an  exceptional  dynamogenic  state  is  produced  in  the  in- 
ferior centers  of  the  cephalo-rachidian  axis. 

This  seems  to  us  to  be  the  conception  of  hypnotic 
suggestion  resulting  from  the  simple  description  of  facts 
such  as  all  the  world  can  observe.  Yet  it  conflicts 
with  a  conception  wholly  different,  which  pretends  to 
come  from  observation,  but  which  seems  to  be  the 
product  of  a  systematic  spirit,  and  in  which  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  us  to  see  anything  but  pure  construction  a  priori. 
This  conception  is  that  of  the  School  of  Nancy. 

According  to  Professor  Bernheim,  who  is  the  theo- 
rist of  that  School,  hypnotic  suggestion  does  not  differ,  in 
reality,  from  ordinary  suggestion;  or,  more  properly 
speaking,  there  is  only  one  kind  of  suggestion,  which  is 


SUGGESTION  in 

defined:  *'  The  act  by  which  an  idea  is  introduced  into 
the  brain  and  accepted  by  it."  Then,  there  is  sugges- 
tion whenever  an  idea,  being  introduced  into  the  mind 
of  an  individual,  is  accepted  by  him,  believed  and 
obeyed,  and  he  feels  and  acts  accordingly.  From  that, 
suggestion  is  everywhere  in  human  life  —  example, 
education,  eloquence,  moral  authority,  so  many  forms 
of  suggestion  which  do  not  differ  essentially  from  hyp- 
notic suggestion. 

This,  wholly  as  the  other,  depends  directly  and  exclu- 
sively upon  a  general  and  normal  property  of  the  human 
brain  —  suggestibility ;  that  is  to  say,  upon  that  credu- 
lity and  natural  docility,  common  to  all  human  beings, 
which  causes  them  to  believe  and  to  do  what  is  told 
them,  under  the  immediate  impression  of  all  idea  that 
is  presented  to  them  with  sufficient  force  or  insistence. 

It  is,  then,  useless,  from  this  point  of  view,  to  sup- 
pose that  suggestion  has  for  a  preliminary  condition  a 
certain  state  of  the  nervous  system,  more  or  less  analo- 
gous to  sleep,  and  named  hypnotism.  Far  from  sugges- 
tion being  a  function  of  hypnotism^  it  is  hypnotism 
which  is  a  function  of  suggestion,  "  Suggestion,"  said 
Dr.  Bernheim,  "  is  the  key  to  all  the  phenomena  of 
hypnotism."  In  other  words,  there  is  no  hypnotism, 
there  is  only  suggestion.  The  so-called  hypnotic  sleep 
is  no  more  than  suggested  sleep,  identical  In  essence 
with  ordinary  sleep.  In  the  same  way  that  laughing, 
dancing,  nausea,  etc.,  can  be  produced  by  suggestion, 
so  sleep  can  be  produced;  but  there  is  no  reason  for 
according  a  preponderant  importance  to  this  particu- 
lar effect  of  suggestion  and  for  considering  It  more 


112     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

characteristic  than  any  other.  Once  more,  let  us  re- 
peat, it  is  suggestion  which  explains  all,  while  suggestion 
itself  is  self-explanatory. 

From  the  very  opposition  of  these  two  conceptions,  it 
can  be  concluded  that  if  suggestion  is,  in  certain  re- 
spects, a  fact,  it  is  in  certain  other  respects  an  enigma 
which  presents  a  problem,  or  many  problems,  to  be 
solved.  Consequently,  before  employing  it,  or  in 
order  to  be  able  to  employ  it  with  some  certainty  as  an 
hypothesis,  it  must  be  minutely  studied  in  its  different 
forms,  and  analyzed  by  all  the  processes  of  the  experi- 
mental method. 

It  does  not  seem  to  us  that,  up  to  the  present  time, 
this  preliminary  work  has  been  done,  or  at  least  that  it 
has  been  carried  sufficiently  far. 

Whatever  the  School  of  Nancy  may  say,  the  differ- 
ences which  separate  hypnotic  suggestion  from  ordinary 
suggestion  are  too  striking  for  it  to  be  possible  to  make 
them  disappear  by  a  pure  and  simple  negation.  Will- 
ingly or  unwillingly,  this  problem  presents  itself  to  the 
mind :  How  does  it  happen  that  in  the  case  of  hypnotic 
suggestion  the  subject  loses  all  control  over  his  sen- 
sations, his  ideas,  even  his  acts,  and  becomes  an  autom- 
aton in  the  hands  of  the  one  who  suggestioned  him? 

The  artifice  to  which  the  School  of  Nancy  has  re- 
course in  order  to  suppress  the  difficulty  consists,  on 
the  whole,  in  abusing  the  principle  of  continuity.  As 
we  have  shown  in  the  preceding  chapter,  it  is  always 
possible,  from  the  philosophic  or  scientific  point  of 
view,  to  claim  that  all  things  in  nature  continue  insensi- 
bly and  are  mingled  one  in  another.     Between  two  ex- 


SUGGESTION  113 

treme  states,  such  as  the  abnormal  state  and  the  state  of 
hypnotic  suggestibility,  there  can  be  imagined  an  infinity 
of  intermediary  states  by  which  the  passage  is  made 
from  one  extreme  to  the  other.  But  this  is  true  also  in 
all  the  orders  of  natural  facts,  and  nevertheless  this 
universal  continuity  does  not  prevent  science  from  estab- 
Hshing  in  all  these  facts  the  distinctions  and  the  opposi- 
tions without  which  it  would  not  be  possible  for  us  to 
submit  them  to  the  influence  of  our  thought  and  our 
action. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  doctrine  of  the  School  of 
Nancy,  if  we  understand  it  correctly,  sees  in  sugges- 
tion nothing  but  an  exclusively  psychological  phenom- 
enon. In  any  case,  if  it  does  not  deny  that  there  may 
be  in  suggestion  extra-psychological  elements,  it  disre- 
gards it  completely.  The  definition  given  by  Bernheim, 
which  we  have  mentioned  above,  speaks,  it  is  true,  of 
the  brain,  and  that  gives  it  a  physiological  appearance. 
But  it  is  nothing  more  than  an  appearance. 

This  formula :  "  Suggestion  is  the  act  by  which  an 
idea  is  introduced  into  the  brain  and  accepted  by  it," 
should  not  be  taken  literally.  From  a  strictly  physio- 
logical point  of  view,  there  is  no  idea  in  the  brain,  but 
cells,  fibers,  blood,  diverse  humors,  perhaps  also  cur- 
rents and  discharges  more  or  less  analogous  to  elec- 
trical currents  and  discharges.  Therefore,  it  cannot 
be  seen  how  the  brain  could  accept  or  reject  an  idea,  in 
the  same  way  that  the  stomach  accepts  or  rejects  food. 
The  word  "  brain  "  is  used  here  improperly  instead  of 
the  word  "  mind,"  and  the  definition  that  it  gives  us  is, 
in  reality,  purely  psychological.     It  does  not  contain 


114    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

any  indication,  it  does  not  throw  any  light  upon  what 
can  happen  simultaneously  in  the  brain  when  an  idea  is 
introduced  into  the  mind  and  accepted  by  it. 

The  analyses  —  too  rare  and  too  superficial,  more- 
over —  which  the  School  of  Nancy  has  made  of  sugges- 
tion, remain  always  confined  within  the  psychological 
field.  It  is  a  question  of  belief,  of  persuasion,  of  ex- 
pectant attention,  of  imagination,  etc. —  all  terms  which 
are  connected  exclusively  with  the  states  of  conscious- 
ness. Also,  the  processes  employed  habitually  by  the 
School  of  Nancy  to  produce  suggestion  are,  or  at  least 
pretend  to  be,  of  purely  moral  order.  It  peremptorily 
states  that  the  subject  is  gazed  at  more  or  less  fixedly, 
that  his  forehead,  his  eyelids,  etc.,  are  touched  lightly; 
but  all  these  gestures  have  no  importance:  they  are 
simply  to  fix  the  attention  of  the  subject  and  to  strike  his 
imagination.  The  true  agent,  the  only  one  which  is 
really  eflicacious,  is  the  word  of  the  operator,  which  in- 
culcates or  imposes  the  idea ;  and  suggestion  is  realized 
finally  when  the  mind  believes. 

The  essential  thing  would  be,  then,  to  induce  the  sub- 
ject to  believe;  belief  once  installed  in  his  mind  dis- 
penses with  all  the  rest. 

Let  us  note  that  the  theory  of  the  masters  of  the 
School  of  Nancy  is  the  expression  of  their  personal 
practise  and  technique.  They  are  not  scientists  who 
experiment  in  laboratories  in  entirely  disinterested  re- 
searches; they  are  physicians  who  work  In  clinics  for  the 
purpose  of  curing  or  relieving  patients.  The  patients 
themselves  come  to  them  knowing  that  they  come  to  be 
treated  by  suggestion,  being  already  convinced  of  the 


SUGGESTION  115 

efficacy  of  the  treatment,  and  impressed  by  the  mysteri- 
ous power  which  they  attribute  to  these  physicians. 

One  can  understand  that,  in  these  conditions,  not  em- 
ploying —  or  not  believing  that  they  employ  —  any- 
thing but  persuasion,  the  School  of  Nancy  actually 
imagines  that  there  is  no  other  process.  Looking  else- 
where, however,  we  will  find  that  their  formula  is  really 
too  restricted  to  agree  with  all  the  ensemble  of  facts 
observed. 

First  of  all,  a  large  number  of  operators  claim  that, 
by  purely  physical  processes,  without  the  intervention 
of  any  idea,  they  obtain  a  particular  condition  called  the 
hypnotic  state,  which  is  usually  accompanied  by  an  ab- 
normal suggestibility.  It  is  thus  that  Braid  claimed  to 
have  provoked  hypnosis  by  the  prolonged  fixation  of  a 
brilliant  point,  independently  of  all  suggestion.  He 
says: 

I  called  one  of  my  domestic  servants  who  knew  nothing  of 
mesmerism,  and  in  the  instructions  which  I  gave  him  I  made 
him  believe  that  his  fixed  attention  was  necessary  in  order  to 
watch  a  chemical  experiment  dealing  with  the  preparation  of  a 
medicine.  As  I  had  frequently  asked  him  to  do  this,  he  ex- 
pressed no  surprise. 

Two  minutes  and  a  half  later  his  eyelids  closed  slowly,  with 
a  vibratory  movement;  his  head  fell  forward  on  his  chest;  he 
heaved  a  sigh,  and  was  instantly  plunged  into  a  deep  sleep. 

However  this  fact  may  be  explained,  it  is  wholly 
impossible  to  discover  in  it  the  elements  of  true  sugges- 
tion; for  Braid  had  not  suggested  to  his  servant  that  he 
should  go*  to  sleep  but,  quite  the  contrary,  he  had  told 


ii6    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

him  to  pay  strict  attention  In  order  to  watch  a  chemical 
experiment. 

Here  Is  another  instance,  reported  by  Dr.  Lajoie,  of 
Nashua,  New  Hampshire : 

I  was  called  to  a  twelve-year-old  child  who  had  slept  for 
twenty  hours.  Greatly  alarmed,  the  parents  asked  me  what 
this  meant.  I  woke  the  child,  but  not  easily,  by  suggesting  to 
him  the  idea  of  waking.  And  this  boy  showed  me  a  shining 
crystal  bowl  on  the  table.  **  I  was  amusing  myself  watching 
the  sun  shine  on  that  bowl,"  he  said ;  "  I  felt  tired ;  and  I 
do  not  remember  anything  else." 

It  is  true  that  Dr.  Lajoie  added :  "  There  Is  no  evi- 
dence there  of  any  suggestion  other  than  that  due  to 
fatigue.''  He  may  have  said  this,  however,  to  be  In 
accord  with  the  doctrine  of  suggestion. 

And  this  does  not  explain  how  the  sensation  of 
fatigue  was  able  to  suggest  to  the  child  the  idea  that  he 
must  go  Into  a  sleep  that  would  last  twenty  hours  and 
be  so  deep  that  his  parents  could  not  wake  him  —  a 
sleep  which,  however,  was  able  to  cease  merely  by  the 
suggestion  of  waking. 

Another  case  of  the  same  kind  has  been  observed  by 
Dr.  Auguste  Volsin.  It  Is  that  of  a  young  girl, 
twenty  years  old,  affected  with  convulsive  attacks,  whom 
he  hypnotized  by  means  of  Dr.  Luys'  rotative  mirror, 
without  any  suggestion  whatsoever. 

Similarly,  Dr.  Crocq  asserts  that  he  has  hypnotized 
an  hysterical  patient  In  the  hospital  of  Molenbeek  by 
the  simple  fixation  of  the  gaze.  No  one  knew  at  the 
time  that  Dr.  Crocq  studied  these  questions,  and  previ- 
ous to  this  experiment  none  of  the  kind  had  ever  been 


SUGGESTION  117 

made  there.  This  patient  presented,  after  the  first 
seance,  true  somnambulism,  with  complete  insensibility. 

*'  In  these  conditions  unconscious  suggestion  is  not 
possible,"  says  Dr.  Crocq.  And  he  adds:  "Since 
then,  at  any  instant,  I  have  succeeded  in  putting  to 
sleep,  by  the  fixation  of  a  brilliant  object,  subjects  abso- 
lutely ignorant  of  what  was  required  of  them." 

Finally,  hypnotization  in  animals  is  scarcely  ex- 
plained by  the  hypothesis  of  suggestion.  When  a 
cockerel  is  hypnotized  by  the  process  of  Father  Kircher 
—  in  having  his  beak  fixed  for  several  minutes  over  a 
white  line  drawn  on  the  ground  —  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand that  there  is  no  suggestion  there:  that  is,  no 
effect  produced  by  an  idea,  as  if  the  cockerel  understood 
that  it  was  intended  that  he  should  go  to  sleep,  and 
persuaded  himself  ipso  facto  that  it  was  impossible  not 
to  go  to  sleep. 

It  would  be  better  to  be  resigned  to  establishing  the 
fact,  and  to  confess  that  the  mechanism  is  not  yet 
known.  But  nothing  is  harder  for  certain  minds,  even 
though  trained  by  scientific  culture,  than  to  acknowl- 
edge, ingenuously,  their  ignorance. 

It  seems  to  us,  then,  extremely  probable  that  there 
exists  a  particular  state  of  the  nervous  system  —  hyp- 
notism —  undoubtedly  connected  by  close  rapports 
with  suggestion,  but  which  cannot  be  made  to  coin- 
cide with  it  completely. 

This  state  resembles  sleep,  and  appears  to  be  accom- 
panied, as  sleep  also  is,  by  a  sort  of  stupor  or  torpor 
of  the  psychological  activity  of  the  individual,  a  dimi- 
nution of  his  mental  energy,  a  contraction  of  his  con- 
sciousness, a  more  or  less  complete  paralysis  of  his 


ii8    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

will  —  all  of  this  being  perhaps  originally  produced 
by  purely  physical  causes.  It  possesses,  as  an  ordinary 
though  not  constant  effect,  the  apparition  of  an  abnor- 
mal and  excessive  suggestibility,  which,  once  deter- 
mined, can  react  on  its  own  cause  and  produce  the 
hypnotic  state,  or  can  strengthen  it. 

The  School  of  Nancy  pretends,  it  is  true,  that  hyp- 
notic sleep  —  meaning  hypnosis  under  the  classical 
form  of  somnambulism  —  does  not  differ  from  ordi- 
nary sleep ;  that  it  is  no  more  than  a  sleep  provoked  by 
suggestion. 

But  this  assertion  is  absolutely  contradicted  by  the 
facts. 

In  ordinary  sleep  the  individual  does  not  understand 
what  is  said  to  him,  or,  if  he  understands,  he  wakes; 
his  tactile  sensibility  may  be  lessened,  but  it  remains, 
and  if  he  is  touched  roughly,  pinched,  or  pricked,  he 
reacts  in  his  sleep. 

How  is  it  that  in  hypnotic  sleep  the  subject  continues 
to  understand  his  hypnotizer,  to  answer  him,  and  espe- 
cially to  obey  him  by  executing  all  his  suggestions,  even 
the  most  absurd  and  extravagant?  How  is  it  that  he 
often  presents  complete  insensibility,  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  can  be  touched,  pinched,  pricked,  etc.,  without 
appearing  to  feel  anything?  How  is  it  that  he  wakes 
only  when  ordered  to  do  so  by  his  hypnotizer,  and 
that,  as  a  general  rule,  he  has,  after  waking,  no  rec- 
ollection of  anything  that  has  happened  during  his 
sleep,  and  even  sometimes  of  anything  that  has  immedi- 
ately preceded  it?  It  is  true,  also, —  and  we  have 
many  times  observed  this  —  that  when  once  awakened 
the  subject  cannot  even  remember  having  been  asleep, 


SUGGESTION  119 

and  declares,  in  perfectly  good  faith,  that  he  has  victo- 
riously resisted  the  processes  of  the  hypnotizer.  In 
order  to  convince  him,  it  is  necessary  to  put  him  to 
sleep  again,  and  to  produce,  either  in  him  or  about  him, 
some  visible  change  which  will  prove  to  him,  when  he 
is  again  awakened,  that  he  has  actually  been  asleep. 

Let  us  note,  moreover,  one  prominent  characteristic 
of  hypnotic  sleep  which  is  foreign  to  ordinary  sleep. 
It  is  that  there  is  present  sometimes,  in  certain  sub- 
jects, the  phenomenon  called  rapport.  By  this  is  meant 
that  the  subject  hypnotized  seems  to  be  in  relation  with 
no  one  but  his  hypnotizer :  it  is  his  hypnotizer  only  that 
he  understands,  and  it  is  to  him  only  that  he  responds. 
All  other  individuals  are,  for  the  subject,  as  if  they 
did  not  exist,  at  least  unless  they  put  themselves  en 
rapport  with  the  hypnotizer  by  touching  him;  but  the 
instant  the  contact  ceases,  they  cease  to  be  en  rapport 
with  the  subject. 

The  situation  is,  then,  entirely  different  from  that 
which  would  be  observed  if  the  subject  were  to  sleep 
as  the  effect  of  his  own  conviction  that  he  was  going  to 
fall  into  an  ordinary  sleep;  for,  in  this  case,  he  could 
not  hear  the  one  who  suggested  that  he  go  to  sleep,  or 
else  he  could  hear  all  other  persons  as  well.  He  would 
dream  spontaneously;  he  would  snore  —  if  he  had  that 
habit;  he  would,  in  a  word,  present  in  this  state  all  the 
symptoms  of  his  ordinary  sleep.  It  is  well  authenti- 
cated that  subjects  in  the  hypnotic  state  are  not  con- 
scious of  being  asleep.  We  have  found  that  a  large 
number  who,  while  in  a  deep  hypnotic  state,  were  asked : 
"  Are  you  asleep?'*  have  answered  us  with  an  expres- 
sion of  astonishment:     "  Why,  no;  I  am  not  asleep  I  " 


120    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

The  partizans  of  suggestion  will  endeavor  to  meet 
the  question  by  alleging  that  all  the  differences  which 
apparently  distinguish  hypnotic  sleep  from  ordinary 
sleep  are,  in  reality,  the  effects  of  suggestion.  If  the 
subject,  so-called  hypnotized,  continues  to  understand 
his  hypnotizer,  to  answer  him,  to  obey  him,  it  is  because 
he  has  suggested  this  to  himself.  If,  on  waking,  he 
remembers  nothing  of  his  sleep,  it  is  because  this 
amnesia  has  been  suggested  to  him.  In  the  same  way, 
the  phenomenon  of  rapport,  if  it  really  exists  (for  sug- 
gestionists  would  prefer  on  the  whole  to  deny  it  rather 
than  give  an  explanation  even  conforming  to  their 
theory)  can  be  only  the  effect  of  previous  suggestion. 

Unfortunately,  all  the  assertions  are,  we  repeat, 
wholly  contradicted  by  the  facts. 

The  first  case  of  authentic  somnambulism  constated 
and  described  by  mesmerists  is,  it  seems,  that  of  the 
famous  Victor  Vielet,  who  went  to  sleep  spontaneously 
under  the  passes  made  by  the  Marquis  de  Puysegur,  and 
who  at  the  very  beginning,  to  the  great  surprise  of  de 
Puysegur,  presented  all  the  symptoms  of  hypnotic  sleep. 

I  have  more  than  once  operated  upon  subjects  who 
were  wholly  ignorant  of  hypnotism,  not  in  the  least  sus- 
pecting the  purpose  of  the  processes  I  practised  upon 
them  (passes,  contact  of  the  hands  upon  the  shoulder- 
blades,  etc.),  and  who,  moreover,  have  fallen  immedi- 
ately into  a  deep  sleep,  with  anesthesia,  amnesia,  ex- 
clusive rapport,  etc.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  very 
frequently  operated  upon  subjects  who  were  well 
versed  in  hypnotism  and  were  very  desirous  of  being 
hypnotized,  but  who  remained  completely  refractory 
to  all  my  attempts  at  hypnotization  and  suggestion,  or 


SUGGESTION  121 

who  would  go  only  into  an  incomplete  hypnotic  sleep. 

One  subject  conserves  his  sensibility  intact,  and  does 
not  lose  it  even  if  he  is  suggestioned  to  do  so.  Another 
subject,  although  in  appearance  also  easily  suggestible, 
continues  to  feel  the  contacts,  pinches,  pricks,  etc., 
executed  upon  him,  even  if  it  is  suggestioned  to  him 
that  he  will  not  feel  them.  Almost  all,  once  awakened, 
have  no  recollection  of  what  happened  during  their 
sleep,  even  though  amnesia  had  not  in  any  way  been 
suggested  to  them.  Certain  others,  who  are  told: 
"  You  do  not  remember  anything!  "  have  very  faithful 
and  clear  recollections.  Many  are  en  rapport  not  only 
with  the  operator  but  also  with  all  the  assistants; 
some,  on  the  other  hand,  communicate  only  with  the 
operator  or  with  persons  in  contact  with  him,  without 
any  suggestion  Intervening.  It  is  often  due  to  chance 
that  the  operator  himself  discovers  this  fact,  one  of  the 
assistants  having  taken  the  Initiative  to  speak  to  the 
subject,  who,  by  his  immobility  and  his  silence,  brings 
them  to  recognize,  then  to  verify,  that  he  has  not  under- 
stood. 

What  causes  these  inequalities,  these  differences  be- 
tween different  Individuals  in  the  manner  of  reacting 
to  hypnotic  or  suggestive  processes  and  of  realizing 
hypnosis? 

It  would  be  playing  with  words  to  Invoke  suggestion 
here,  even  under  the  form  —  easy  to  suppose  but  diffi- 
cult to  prove  —  of  autosuggestion. 

The  School  of  Nancy  would  say  that  if  a  subject,  in 
spite  of  his  desire  to  be  put  to  sleep,  in  spite  of  the 
willingness  with  which  he  lends  himself  to  the  attempts 
to  hypnotize  him,  remains  rebellious  to  all  suggestion. 


122     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

it  is  undoubtedly  because  he  is  suggestioned  uncon- 
sciously that  he  will  not  sleep,  that  he  will  not  be  sug- 
gestioned. If  a  certain  other  subject,  even  though  put 
to  sleep,  retains  his  sensibility,  it  is  because  he  has  un- 
consciously suggested  to  himself  that  he  will  remain 
sensitive.     And  so  forth. 

With  this  manner  of  reasoning,  anything  can  be  ex- 
plained and  proved,  without  the  trouble  of  observing 
and  experimenting. 

Let  us,  however,  place  ourselves  in  the  position  in 
which  the  School  of  Nancy  is  fortified,  and  try  to  follow 
the  consequences  of  its  theory  to  the  end.  Sugges- 
tion, we  claim,  owes  its  power  to  the  natural  suggesti- 
bility of  the  brain,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  of  the 
human  mind.  It  is  a  normal  consequence  of  the  credu- 
lity and  the  docility  natural  to  the  entire  human  race. 
It  is  a  consequence  of  that  psychological  law  in  virtue 
of  which  all  ideas  tend  to  be  affirmed  and  realized,  un- 
less hindered  by  the  equal  tendency  of  other  contradic- 
tory ideas  —  a  law  which  Spinoza  seems  first  to  have 
stated,  and  which  has  been  repeated  since  by  many  au- 
thors, such  as  Herbart,  Dugald-Stewart,  and  Taine, 
and  which  might  be  called,  with  the  French  philosopher 
Fouillee,  the  law  of  idea-forces. 

However,  we  must  not  disregard  the  fact  that  this 
law,  which  renders  suggestion  possible,  renders  auto- 
suggestion equally  possible ;  and  the  latter  can  —  must, 
even,  in  many  circumstances  —  be  in  oppositior  to  the 
former. 

Every  human  individual  is,  it  might  be  said,  autosug- 
gestioned  in  a  great  many  ways :  by  his  innate  or  hered- 
itary   inclinations,    his    habits,    his    recollections,    the 


SUGGESTION  123 

education  he  has  received,  the  experiences  he  has  had  in 
the  course  of  his  past  life;  and  all  these  autosugges- 
tions can  constitute  so  many  countersuggestions  with 
regard  to  some  particular  suggestion  coming  from  an- 
other individual. 

Among  these  permanent  autosuggestions,  should 
be  included  faith  in  the  testimony  of  our  senses  and 
our  memory,  confidence  in  the  constancy  of  the  order 
of  nature,  at  least  in  a  broad  sense,  the  instinct  of  con- 
servation and  of  self-preservation,  which  forms  the 
basis  of  all  that  which  we  call,  in  practise,  our  will  and 
our  liberty. 

If  a  suggestion  coming  from  the  outside  does  not 
contradict,  does  not  clash  with,  these  fundamental 
autosuggestions,  it  has  a  chance  of  being  accepted  by 
us,  of  prevailing  upon  our  belief,  our  consent,  or  even 
our  obedience.  For  all  suggestion  of  this  kind  we 
would  propose  the  term  plausible  suggestion. 

A  suggestion  to  which  might  be  applied  the  term 
paradoxical  suggestion  is  that,  for  example,  which 
would  be  able  to  make  us  believe  it  is  night  when  it  is 
midday;  or  that  some  one  we  know  has  been  dead  for 
a  long  time  has  come  to  pay  us  a  visit;  or  that  a 
candle  is  lighted  simply  by  blowing  upon  it;  or  that  we 
cannot  open  nor  shut  our  eyes,  fold  our  arms,  move  our 
legs,  etc.,  merely  because  we  have  been  told  that  we 
cannot  do  so.  Any  such  suggestion  cannot  fail  to  wake 
in  us  an  immediate  and  energetic  countersuggestion  re- 
sulting from  our  fundamental  autosuggestions. 

Normally,  to  any  one  who  gave  me  a  suggestion  of 
this  kind,  I  should  respond  either  by  laughing  at  him,  or 
by  demanding  if  he  were  not  mocking  me,  or  if  he  had 


124    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

not  lost  his  reason.  But  In  the  case  of  a  hypnotized 
subject,  normal  countersuggestion  does  not  apply.  The 
fundamental  autosuggestions  are,  as  it  were,  inert,  the 
subject  believing  the  improbable,  the  impossible. 

The  problem  of  hypnotic  suggestion  lies  in  knowing 
precisely  why  this  suggestion  does  not  encounter  the 
opposition  of  the  habitual  reducteiirs  of  all  paradoxical 
suggestion:  and  it  is  very  evident  that  this  "  why  "  is 
not  to  be  found  in  suggestion.  All  happens  as  if  an 
unknown  influence  had  momentarily  made  a  void  in  the 
mind,  so  as  to  give  free  rein  to  the  idea  suggested  and 
enable  it  thus  to  be  developed  without  obstacle.  It  is 
this  unknown  Influence,  without  which  suggestion  could 
not  exist,  that  Durand  de  Gros  called  hypotaxy,  and 
that  is  known  more  generally  as  hypnotism.  Thus,  we 
have  had  only  to  follow  the  doctrine  of  suggestion  far 
enough  in  order  to  go  beyond  It  and  become  convinced 
that  suggestion  Itself  presupposes  another  principle. 

This  appears  more  evident  still  If  we  consider  the 
cases  where  the  habitual  reducteurs  of  paradoxical  sug- 
gestion, even  though  awake  and  active,  find  themselves 
powerless  to  reduce  it.  In  the  practise  of  the  School 
of  Nancy  these  reductions  are,  so  to  speak,  out  of  play: 
the  patients  are  Informed  of  the  power  of  the  sugges- 
tloner,  and  disposed  In  advance  to  submit  to  the  effects ; 
the  suggestions  which  will  be  given  them  —  knowing, 
as  they  do,  that  they  are  for  the  curing  or  relieving  of 
their  ailment  —  are,  In  their  eyes,  not  paradoxical 
but  plausible.  It  happens  wholly  otherwise  with  an 
operator  acting  upon  the  first  persons  who  come  to  him, 
and  who  lend  themselves  to  his  action  out  of  simple 


SUGGESTION  125 

curiosity,  but  with  the  Idea  well  determined  that  he 
will  not  obtain  any  effect. 

How  may  we  explain  the  elements  of  suggestion,  as 
defined  by  the  School  of  Nancy,  In  such  a  case  as  that 
of  "  Laverdant,"  curiously  analyzed  by  Durand  de 
Gros  in  his  Cours  de  Braidisme?  ^ 

The  subject  assisted  for  the  first  time  at  a  seance  of  hypno- 
tism; and  in  placing  himself  at  the  disposition  of  the  experi- 
menter, he  did  so  in  order  to  ''  fill  a  gap  "  and  nothing  more. 
He  was  not  actually  under  the  influence  of  any  idea  of  sug- 
gestion; he  did  not  expect  in  any  way  to  be  suggestioned ;  he 
did  not  know,  even,  precisely  what  the  experiment  would  be; 
his  whole  thought  was  to  take  advantage  of  the  occasion  to  get 
his  customary  short  nap.  An  Instant  after  gazing  intently  upon 
the  object  placed  in  his  hand,  he  became  hypnotized.  Not  hav- 
ing ceased  to  be  fully  awake,  he  did  not  believe  possible  the 
realization  of  the  hypnotizer's  affirmations.  It  was  almost 
with  indignation  that  he  resented  the  latter's  suggestion  that 
he  did  not  know  one  of  the  letters  of  his  name.  And  when 
this  fact  was  realized,  he  showed  stupefaction  and  consternation 
no  less  than  any  of  the  assistants. 

Durand  de  Gros  believes  It  can  be  concluded  that,  In 
a  like  case,  the  subject  who  obeys  suggestion  Is  not  the 
same  as  one  who,  receiving  It,  struggles  against  It  with 
all  his  power. 

"  On  the  one  hand,"  he  says,  "  the  real  will  of  the 
subject,  the  will  of  which  he  has  consciousness,  remains 
Intact,  since  he  Intends  to  resist  the  mysterious  experi- 
ment, and  he  wills  It  energetically  to  the  end.     On  the 

1  Cours  theorique  et  pratique  de  Braidisme,  published  under  the 
pseudonym  of  Dr.  Philips. 


126    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

other  hand,  that  which  causes  an  act  of  faith  and  obedi- 
ence in  the  subject  is  not  the  subject  himself,  properly 
speaking;  it  is  another  ego  than  his  ego." 

In  other  words,  suggestion,  in  facts  of  this  kind,  re- 
veals to  us  a  mechanism  much  more  complicated  than 
the  simplistic  doctrine  which  the  School  of  Nancy  builds 
and  pulls  to  pieces  with  such  assurance.  There  are 
more  mysteries  in  suggestion  than  dreamed  of  by  that 
School.  We  have  shown  in  Our  Hidden  Forces  the 
very  important  role  played  by  crytopsychism  in  sug- 
gestion; and  it  does  not  seem  to  us  that  the  partisans  of 
suggestion,  as  understood  by  Bernheim,  could  doubt 
this. 

But  what  conclusion  can  we  draw  from  all  this  dis- 
cussion? 

First  of  all,  the  method  which  consists  in  explaining 
concrete  facts  by  abstract  terms,  such  as  suggestion  and 
suggestibility^  seems  to  us  antiscientific  in  the  highest 
degree;  it  is  an  old  remnant  of  the  scholastic  method, 
a  recourse  to  entities,  to  qualities,  and  occult  virtues. 

There  is  a  subject  to  whom  I  give,  at  will,  hallucina- 
tions of  the  most  impossible  order,  whose  organs  I 
paralyze  at  pleasure.  What  can  be  the  cause  of  effects 
so  extraordinary?  It  is  very  simple:  it  is  all  sugges- 
tion. But  this  suggestion,  how  is  it  explained  ?  From 
whence  comes  its  power?  That  is  very  simple  also:  it 
is  a  consequence  of  suggestibility,  a  natural  property  of 
the  human  brain. 

Thus  it  is  believed  that  facts  are  explained  in  muffling 
them  in  a  name,  just  as  the  scholastics  believed  that  they 
explained  sleep  produced  by  opium  in  saying  that  opium 
has  a  sleep-producing  virtue ! 


SUGGESTION  127 

According  to  this  reasoning,  it  would  be  useless  to 
seek  the  particular  cause  of  each  of  the  maladies  from 
which  humanity  suffers;  it  would  be  sufficient  to  say, 
"  It  is  a  malady,"  or,  upon  insistence,  to  evoke  morbid- 
ity, that  is  to  say,  the  natural  property  which  every 
human  organism  possesses  to  become  diseased. 

In  this  question,  as  in  all  others,  the  true  scientific 
method  consists  in  seeking  the  cause  of  a  phenomenon 
in  its  material  conditions,  in  its  physical  antecedents  or 
concomitants.  Suggestion  and  suggestibility  are  not 
real  causes;  they  are  simply  names  to  designate  the 
facts  themselves  of  which  we  must  seek  the  causes.  In 
other  words,  they  are  the  verbal  causes,  provisional, 
conventional,  behind  which  are  hidden  the  real  causes, 
which  remain  to  be  discovered,  and  which,  when  we 
know  them,  will  permit  us  not  only  to  understand  their 
effects  but  even  to  foresee  them,  and  to  control  them  at 
our  will. 

Inasmuch  as  experience  shows  us  that  all  human  in- 
dividuals are  not  suggestible,  or  all  at  least  are  sug- 
gestible in  different  degrees,  and  also  that  an  individual 
suggestible  to-day  in  certain  circumstances  will  not  be 
suggestible  later  in  apparently  identical  circumstances,^ 
it  is  very  necessary  to  admit  that  suggestion  is  not  a 
fact  subsisting  in  itself,  an  absolute  fact,  of  which  it  is 
useless  to  seek  the  cause,  and  which  can  only  itself  be 
evoked  as  the  cause  of  all  the  particular  suggestions; 
but  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  an  effect  depending  upon  con- 
ditions still  unknown,  the  knowledge  of  which  Is  pre- 
cisely the  aim  of  scientific  research. 

2  There  are  some  subjects  who  might  be  called  intermittents. 
(Charles  Richet:  De  quelques  phenomenes  de  suggestion  sans  hypnot- 
isme.) 


128    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

However,  we  are  sufficiently  well  acquainted  with  the 
general  laws  of  the  physiological  life  to  know  that  this 
life  has,  at  least  in  part,  its  conditions  in  the  organism, 
notably  in  the  nervous  system  and  the  brain. 

There  are  certain  cases  where  psychological  phe- 
nomena appear  to  complement  one  another,  and  it  is 
not  necessary,  in  order  to  render  them  intelligible,  to 
separate  them  from  their  series.  Such  is,  for  example, 
a  long  algebraic  or  geometric  demonstration,  in  which 
the  mind  seems  to  be  concerned  only  with  itself  and  to 
obey  exclusively  its  own  laws. 

But  this  appears  not  to  be  the  case  with  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion. In  order  that  the  idea  introduced  into  the 
subject's  consciousness  by  means  of  the  spoken  word 
may  produce  automatically  the  hallucinations,  amnesia, 
paralysis,  etc.,  it  is  necessary  to  seek  the  cause  of  these 
effects  outside  of  the  mind  itself,  in  some  modification 
—  the  nature  of  which  is  still  unknown  —  of  the  circu- 
latory and  nervous  state  of  the  brain  centers  and  of  all 
the  cerebro-spinal  system. 

So  long  as  this  modification  is  not  produced,  if  I  were 
to  say  to  a  subject :  "  You  cannot  open  your  eyes ;  you 
cannot  fold  your  arms,  nor  bend  your  knees,"  he  would 
ridicule  my  suggestions.  When,  however,  this  modifi- 
cation is  produced,  in  spite  of  his  credulity,  in  spite  of 
his  efforts  to  resist  me,  he  is  forced  to  obey  (as  was 
shown  in  the  case  of  La  verdant). 

In  this  nervous  and  cerebral  modification,  in  this 
hypotaxic  state  of  the  subject's  organism,  resides  the 
true  cause  of  the  phenomena  of  which  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  operator  is  but  the  occasion,  the  determi- 
nant condition. 


SUGGESTION  129 

There  is,  however,  no  reason  to  suppose  a  priori 
that  this  modification,  of  a  physical  or  physiological 
nature,  can  be  produced  only  by  suggestion,  which  is 
of  a  psychological  order.  Where  suggestion  is  possi- 
ble, it  seems  that  it  can  be  produced  by  a  large  number 
of  different  causes  —  as  is  shown  in  the  case  of  the 
numerous  and  diverse  processes  of  hypnotization;  by  all 
those  causes,  at  least,  which  sufficiently  disturb  the  cus- 
tomary equilibrium  of  the  system. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  we  have  already  shown,  ex- 
perience proves  that  purely  physical  processes  —  such 
as  the  prolonged  fixation  of  the  gaze  upon  a  certain 
spot  (experiments  of  Braid,  Grimm,  and  Dr.  Philips), 
not  to  mention  passes  —  produce  the  state  very  rapidly 
in  a  large  number  of  subjects,  and  prepare  them  for 
the  effects  of  suggestion. 

Therefore,  it  is  not  true  that  hypnotism,  which  is 
confused  with  the  hypotaxic  state,  is  nothing  but  sug- 
gestion. Quite  the  contrary,  suggestion,  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases,  has  hypnotism  for  a  preliminary  con- 
dition. 

Hypnotism  and  suggestion  are  two  connected  but  dis- 
tinct facts,  not  necessarily  existing  in  the  same  propor- 
tion. There  are  subjects  who  are  suggestible  in  the 
highest  degree,  and  in  whom  the  hypnotic  state  is  pro- 
duced only  with  great  difficulty  and  remains  more  or 
less  superficial.  On  the  other  hand,  there  exist  certain 
individuals  who  can  be  hypnotized  with  the  utmost  ease, 
and  upon  whom  suggestion  has  but  little  Influence.^ 

3  We  readily  believe  that  the  apparition  of  suggestibility  is  a  char- 
acteristic of  hypnotism,  but  only  in  its  initial  or  middle  phase,  and 
that,  in  the  measure  that  suggestion  becomes  stronger,  hypnotism 
grows  weaker  and  tends  finally  to  disappear.     This  is  only  an  hypoth- 


130    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

It  would  be  interesting  to  study  all  these  anomalies, 
not  at  random  from  observations  made  in  a  clinic,  but 
by  experimental  researches  methodically  pursued  in  a 
laboratory. 

In  the  absence  of  this  study,  suggestion  will  remain, 
for  a  long  time  to  come,  a  certain  but  enigmatical  fact ; 
and  its  use  as  an  hypothesis  must  be  accompanied  by 
many  precautions  and  reservations. 

Ill 

We  have  distinguished  two  different  uses  of  the  hy- 
pothesis: one  theoretical,  the  other  experimental,  ac- 
cording to  whether  we  make  it  serve  to  explain  facts 
already  known,  or  to  experiment  in  order  to  discover 
new  facts  or  to  prove  a  new  law. 

Suggestion  also  can  play  this  double  role  in  the 
parapsychic  sciences,  and  we  must  look  upon  it  first  as 
a  theoretical  hypothesis,  and  then  as  an  experimental 
hypothesis. 

It  is  especially,  and  perhaps  even  exclusively,  with 
the  first  of  these  two  points  of  view  that  the  School 
of  Nancy  has  ranged  itself.  Suggestion  has  been  in  its 
hands,  above  all  else,  a  process  of  explanation  by  means 
of  which  it  has  tried  to  account  for  the  various  hyp- 
notic phenomena  and  their  different  characteristics.  In 
other  words,  it  has  tried  to  systematize  these  phenom- 
ena by  having  them  all  derived  from  a  sole  principle; 
and  to  accomplish  this  it  resorted  much  more  to  reason- 
ing than  to  experimentation. 

esis;  but  it  would  be  worth  the  trouble,  we  think,  to  verify  it,  and, 
in  any  case,  it  could  serve  as  the  fil  conducteur  of  experimental  re- 
searches. 


SUGGESTION  131 

One  may  be  surprised  at  this  assertion,  and  may 
contest  its  exactness  by  observing  that  the  partizans  of 
this  School  use  suggestion  constantly  in  their  practise. 
It  is  by  means  of  suggestion  that  they  put  their  subjects 
to  sleep ;  it  is  by  this  means  that  they  obtain  all  kinds  of 
phenomena  —  of  a  physical  or  physiological  order  as 
well  as  of  a  mental  order ;  and  by  this  means  they  de- 
vise treatments  for  all  the  most  varied  affections. 

This  practical  use  of  suggestion  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  experimental  hypothesis,  which  is  quite  a  dif- 
ferent thing  from  a  simple  operative  process. 

Knowing  that  suggestion  produces  certain  specific 
effects,  it  is  quite  natural  for  it  to  be  employed  when 
these  effects  are  desired.  There  does  not  enter  into 
that  any  kind  of  hypothesis  —  at  least  so  long  as  the 
operator  does  not  try  to  obtain,  by  means  of  sugges- 
tion, some  effect  which  he  does  not  know  that  it  is  really 
capable  of  producing. 

However,  for  the  clarity  of  this  study,  it  will  be 
helpful  to  look  upon  suggestion  as  an  operative  process 
before  regarding  it  as  an  hypothesis,  either  theoretical 
or  experimental.  This  preliminary  consideration  will 
have  the  advantage  of  clearing  up  the  field  for  the  dis- 
cussion which  will  follow. 

The  first  and  principal  use  of  suggestion  made  by  the 
School  of  Nancy  —  especially  by  Dr.  Liebeault,  the 
founder  of  the  School  —  had  for  its  aim  the  curing  or 
the  alleviation  of  pain.  When  Dr.  Liebeault  asked  his 
patients  why  they  came  to  him,  each  of  them  invariably 
answered :  "  I  came  to  be  cured."  Similarly,  in  the 
clinic  of  Bernheim  it  was,  above  all  else,  a  question  of 
treatment. 


132    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

From  this  it  seems  that  the  Nancian  operative  tech- 
nique contains  two  successive  processes,  the  first  serving 
simply  to  prepare  and,  so  to  speak,  induce  the  second. 
It  is  always  necessary  to  put  the  patient  to  sleep,  or  at 
least  to  influence  him,  in  order  to  put  him  in  a  state  in 
which  he  will  be  able  to  receive  the  suggestion  and 
realize  it.  Then,  once  the  way  is  open,  the  idea  is  im- 
pressed upon  his  mind ;  and  this  idea  itself,  by  means  of 
a  mysterious  process,  will  provoke  in  the  organism  the 
reactions  which  will  result  in  the  recovery  of  health. 

It  is  evident  that  in  this  second  operation,  suggestion 
alone  is  used,  in  its  more  authentic  form  —  verbal  and 
direct.  "  Your  fever  will  decrease,"  the  patient  is  told. 
"  You  will  no  longer  have  excessive  perspiration." 
"  You  will  have  a  good  appetite,"  etc. 

In  the  first  operation,  suggestion  can  be  reinforced  by 
aids  which  sometimes  completely  disguise  it.  This  is 
what  is  called  reinforced  suggestion. 

Upon  a  patient  who  is  already  influenced  by  his  repu- 
tation, the  environment,  etc.,  the  operator  acts  not  only 
by  means  of  words,  but  still  more  so  by  means  of  the 
gaze,  the  slight  touches  upon  the  eyelids  and  temples, 
and  even  by  the  passes.  In  his  own  mind  all  this  is 
nothing  more  than  suggestion,  indirect  and  tacit,  whose 
purpose  is  to  complete  the  direct  suggestion  —  that 
which  is  made  by  word  and  consists  in  the  enumeration 
of  the  symptoms  the  operator  wishes  to  produce: 
"  You  are  thinking  only  of  sleep  —  your  eyelids  are 
heavy  —  they  are  about  to  close — they  are  closing 
already,"  etc. 

Therefore,  when  it  is  a  question  of  obtaining  a  prac- 
tical result,  the  nature  of  the  process  employed  —  theo- 


SUGGESTION  133 

retically  known  or  unknown  —  is  of  little  importance ; 
the  essential  thing  is  that  it  be  efficacious.  In  order  to 
use  suggestion,  it  is  not  necessary  to  know  what  it  is, 
after  all  —  no  more  than  in  the  case  of  electricity. 
Often,  even,  if  one  process  does  not  succeed,  it  can  be 
replaced  by  another;  according  to  the  popular  expres- 
sion, "  An  arrow  can  be  made  of  any  wood." 

It  is  thus  that  Liebeault  and  Bernheim,  having  vainly 
tried  to  cure  a  patient  of  pain  by  means  of  direct  sug- 
gestion, did  not  hesitate  to  take  recourse  to  passes,  at- 
tributing their  success,  however,  to  suggestion. 

Similarly,  the  exclusive  partisans  of  animal  magnet- 
ism or  of  hypnotism  use  suggestion  in  many  cases  when 
they  try,  not  to  prove  a  certain  theory,  but  merely  to 
obtain  a  result;  the  important  thing  with  them  then  is 
to  succeed. 

However,  if  the  School  of  Nancy  has  employed  sug- 
gestion especially  for  therapeutic  or  medical  purposes, 
it  has  employed  it  also,  although  less  frequently,  for 
experimental  purposes ;  for  instance,  in  its  controversies 
with  the  School  of  Paris.  But  this  second  use,  as  well 
as  the  first,  is  possible  only  because  it  gives  informa- 
tion, in  advance,  by  means  of  sufficiently  repeated  and 
varied  observations,  of  the  list  of  principal  effects  that 
it  is  capable  of  producing. 

It  is  useless  to  have  recourse  to  suggestion  to  pro- 
duce in  a  subject  a  certain  physical  or  mental  modifica- 
tion, if  it  is  known  in  advance  that  suggestion  is  inca- 
pable of  provoking  it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  will  be 
deliberately  employed  if  it  is  a  question  of  an  effect 
that  comes  within  its  field  of  action.  It  is,  then, 
extremely  interesting  for  the  operator  to  know  exactly 


134    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

how  far  the  power  of  suggestion  extends,  and  where  it 
stops;  for,  evidently,  however  extensive  it  may  be,  it 
must  have  its  limits. 

Suggestion  undoubtedly  is  limited  by  the  possibilities 
and  the  necessities  resulting  from  natural  laws;  cer- 
tainly it  cannot  perform  miracles.  For  instance,  if  I 
suggest  to  a  subject  that  he  will  never  die,  I  can  make 
him  believe  absolutely  in  his  own  immortality  and 
imagine  that  in  the  future  he  will  be  safe  from  death; 
but  shall  I  be  able  to  make  him  actually  immortal?  If 
I  suggest  to  a  subject  that  he  is  very  cold,  or  very  warm, 
he  will  really  feel,  subjectively,  these  sensations;  but  it 
is  not  certain  that  the  temperature  of  his  body  will 
become  higher  or  lower  in  proportion,  and  that  a  ther- 
mometer put  in  contact  with  his  skin  will  indicate  forty 
degrees  (Centigrade)  or  zero;  with  greater  reason,  it 
cannot  be  supposed  that  the  temperature  of  the  room 
is  raised  or  lowered  in  accordance  with  the  imaginations 
and  beliefs  of  the  subject. 

Perhaps  the  question  will  be  made  clearer  by  dis- 
tinguishing two  great  classes  of  effects  of  suggestion, 
even  though  in  practise  they  are  inseparably  linked  to- 
gether.    These  are : 

(i)   The  effects  of  a  subjective  order. 

(2)   The  effects  of  an  objective  order. 

Being  given  the  nature  of  suggestion,  such  as  we 
have  defined  it  after  the  School  of  Nancy,  for  instance 
in  a  state  of  conviction,  persuasion,  absolute  faith,  there 
is  nothing  surprising,  it  seems,  in  that  it  may  have  sub- 
jective effects  of  a  power  in  some  ways  illimited;  but  its 
objective  effects  are  not  equally  easy  to  understand. 

Thus,  if  I  suggest  to  a  subject  that  he  feels  an  in- 


SUGGESTION  135 

tense  cold,  a  cold  ten  degrees  below  zero,  it  seems  nat- 
ural that  the  subject  would  believe  what  I  say  to  him, 
and  that  he  would  feel,  or  imagine  he  feels,  a  sensa- 
tion of  cold  so  intense  as  to  cause  him  to  shiver,  his 
teeth  to  chatter,  etc.*  But  there  is  in  that  only  a 
subjective  effect:  that  is,  a  belief  and  a  sensation,  or 
rather  an  hallucination  involved  in  the  belief.  It  is 
true  that  the  chill,  the  chattering  of  teeth,  etc.,  are  ob- 
jective phenomena;  but  are  these  phenomena  the  direct 
effects  of  suggestion  ?  Are  they  not  immediately  linked 
to  sensation  and  consequently  also  to  the  hallucinatory 
image,  in  a  way  that  causes  this  to  appear  in  the  mind 
with  or  without  suggestion? 

It  would,  on  the  contrary,  be  an  incontestable  objec- 
tive effect  if  the  thermometer,  put  in  contact  with  the 
subject's  body,  registered  a  noticeable  lowering  of  the 
temperature,  especially  a  lowering  to  ten  degrees  below 
zero.  As  no  such  effect  is  observed  ordinarily,  it  would 
be  very  necessary  in  this  case  to  attribute  it  to  sugges- 
tion. But  then  it  would  be  necessary  to  admit  at  the 
same  time  that  suggestion  develops  in  the  human  being 
new  powers  really  extraordinary  by  which  the  custom- 
ary relations  of  the  subjective  and  the  objective  are 
greatly  modified. 

In  fact,  it  is  really  this  that  we  establish  in  the  major- 
ity of  cases  of  suggestive  therapeutics.  We  do  not 
seem  to  have,  in  the  normal  state,  the  faculty  of  regulat- 
ing at  will  our  different  physiological  functions;  or,  in 

*We  must  note,  however,  that  one  subject  who,  under  the  eflPect  of 
such  a  suggestion,  could  not  avoid  shivering,  chattering  his  teeth, 
etc.,  declared  all  the  while  that  he  did  not  subjectively  feel  a  cold 
sensation;  this  remaining  in  the  state  of  a  simple  idea.  (Charles 
Richet:    De  quelques  phenomenes  de  suggestion  sans  hypnotisme.) 


136    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

any  case,  this  faculty  remains  latent  and  inactive  in  us. 
But  when  an  individual  is  put  into  the  hypnotic  state  — 
or,  if  you  prefer,  into  the  state  of  effective  suggestibility 
—  he  then  becomes  capable  of  determining  at  will,  upon 
a  simple  word  of  the  hypnotizer  or  the  suggestioner, 
the  complete  anesthesia  of  certain  of  his  organs,  or  of 
his  entire  organism  —  unless  this  be  a  hyperesthesia 
akin  to  the  miraculous  —  the  paralysis  of  all  his  muscu- 
lar forces  or  their  paroxysmic  exaltation,  bringing  into 
play  all  the  vital  energies,  for  the  struggle  against  mi- 
crobes or  the  reparation  of  tissues  impaired  by  morbid 
causes,  etc. 

Here  too  we  border  upon  mystery,  or,  more  exactly, 
upon  the  enigma  of  suggestion.  For  one  cannot  help 
but  believe  that  behind  what  is  seen  in  suggestion  — 
the  word  of  him  who  suggested  the  idea  and  the  faith  of 
him  who  accepts  it  —  there  is  also  that  which  is  not 
seen:  that  is  to  say,  the  unknown  state  of  the  subcon- 
sciousness and  of  the  nervous  system  of  the  subject, 
perhaps  even  some  unknown  influence  emanating  from 
the  operator  which  he  himself  does  not  doubt. 

It  is  true,  as  we  have  remarked  above,  that  it  is 
not  important,  for  the  practical  use  of  suggestion,  that 
we  know  or  that  we  ignore  its  real  nature.  If,  how- 
ever, it  be  once  admitted  —  and  a  great  number  of  facts 
appear  to  authorize  this — that  suggestion  brings  to 
light  in  human  beings  unsuspected  powers,  we  cannot  see 
why  there  should  be  imposed  a  priori  a  limit  to  that 
which  it  is  possible  to  expect  of  suggestion,  and  why, 
consequently,  the  savants  do  not  try  to  obtain  by  it  the 
most  improbable  effects.     Experiment  alone  can  teach 


SUGGESTION  137 

us  a  posteriori  that  of  which  suggestion  is  or  is  not 
capable. 

Undoubtedly  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  early  mes- 
merists suggested  to  their  subjects  to  perceive  things 
situated  outside  of  the  normal  field  of  action  of  their 
senses,  claiming  thus  to  produce  the  state  of  second 
sight  in  them;  without,  however,  affirming  that  their 
suggestion  did  anything  but  reveal  a  natural,  preexist- 
ent  faculty.  In  Itself  Independent  of  suggestion. 

Whatever  the  opinion  of  the  different  schools  may 
be  upon  this  particular  point  It  does  not  seem  to  us 
justifiable  to  confine  In  practise  the  use  of  suggestion 
to  a  certain  category  of  effects.  Experimentation 
alone  can  reveal  Its  true  limits, 

IV 

It  is  necessary  for  us,  meanwhile,  to  examine  the 
value  of  suggestion  as  a  principle  of  explanation  for  all 
this  ensemble  of  phenomena  which  we  designate  as 
parapsychic.  For,  In  saying  that  suggestion  Is  the  key 
to  all  these  phenomena,  the  exclusive  partisans  of  sug- 
gestion mean.  In  our  opinion,  that  all  of  the  phenomena 
of  this  order  which  are  real  must  be  able  to  be  explained 
by  suggestion,  and.  Inversely,  all  those  that  suggestion 
does  not  explain  must  be  considered  as  Inexistent  and 
apocryphal. 

We  wish  to  oppose  to  this  assertion  three  objections: 

First:     In  an  order  of  researches  so  difficult  and  so 

little  advanced,  the  pretension  to  explain,  to  theorize, 

to  carry  everything  back  to  a  unique  principle.  Is  In  no 

way  scientific. 


138    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

A  more  urgent  task  imposes  itself :  to  observe  a  con- 
tinually increasing  number  of  facts,  in  conditions  of 
certainty  and  exactitude  as  rigorous  as  possible;  to 
compare,  classify,  analyze,  and  submit  them,  in  a  word, 
to  all  the  processes  of  the  scientific  method,  in  an  en- 
deavor to  discover  their  laws. 

It  is  not  a  paradox  but  a  simple  statement  of  the 
truth  to  claim  that  the  real  scientific  attitude  consists 
in  being  indifferent  to  the  desire  for  explanation,  while 
confining  one's  energies  to  determining  the  phenomena. 

It  is  true  that  the  hypothesis  intervenes  necessarily 
in  this  research;  but  it  is  then  the  experimental  hypothe- 
sis, whose  aim  is  not  to  explain  the  facts  and  rapports 
already  known,  but  rather  to  discover  new  facts  and 
new  rapports.  The  theoretical  hypothesis,  on  the  con- 
trary —  that  which  has  for  its  aim  the  coordination  and 
integration  of  the  results  acquired  —  is  placed  at  the 
end  of  the  operations  of  the  method,  not  in  the  course 
of  the  experiment  being  made  but  when  the  researches 
are  at  an  end.  Can  we  truly  believe  that  the  study  of 
the  parapsychlc  phenomena  has  reached  this  point, 
already? 

Second:  Any  attempt  to  explain  an  ensemble  of 
facts  as  numerous  and  as  varied  as  those  we  are  now 
discussing  strikes  Itself  against  the  difficulty  resulting 
from  the  plurality  of  the  inter-substitution  of  the  causes. 
The  exclusive  partlzans  of  suggestion  reason  invariably 
as  if  the  same  phenomenon  were  always  produced  by 
the  same  cause.  "  It  is  not  true,"  said  Stuart  Mill, 
"  that  the  same  phenomenon  Is  Invariably  produced  by 
the  same  cause :  the  effect  may  come  sometimes  from  A, 


SUGGESTION  139 

sometimes  from  B.  There  are  often  many  independent 
ways  in  which  the  same  phenomenon  may  have  origi- 
nated. Many  causes  may  produce  mechanical  mo- 
tion ;  many  causes  may  produce  certain  species  of  sen- 
sations; and  many  others  produce  death.  A  given 
effect  can  really  be  produced  by  a  certain  cause,  and 
nevertheless  be  perfectly  capable  of  being  produced 
without  it." 

Thus,  while  suggestion  produces  certain  parapsychic 
phenomena  —  as,  for  example,  somnambulism  —  it 
does  not  follow  ipso  facto  that  these  same  phenomena 
cannot  be  produced  by  any  other  cause  than  suggestion. 

Third:  It  is  admitted  unquestionably  that  a  prin- 
ciple of  explanation  is  all  the  more  satisfactory,  all  the 
more  sure,  the  clearer  it  is,  the  more  luminous,  or,  to 
speak  without  metaphor,  the  less  of  the  unknown  it 
contains.  Now,  the  analysis  of  suggestion  as  made 
above,  either  as  a  fact  or  as  an  operative  process,  dem- 
onstrates that  there  exist  few  facts  so  obscure  and  in 
which  the  part  of  the  unknown  is  so  great.  To  explain 
a  certain  parapsychic  fact  by  suggestion  is  usually  to 
explain  ohscurum  per  obscurum,  if  not  per  ohscurius. 

All  these  objections,  which  appear  to  be  very  great  if 
applied  to  the  theoretical  suggestion-hypothesis,  would 
singularly  lose  their  force  were  they  to  aim  at  the  ex- 
perimental suggestion-hypothesis;  for,  in  this  case,  it 
no  longer  would  be  a  question  of  an  explanation  which 
is  given  to  complete  and  define  a  whole  order  of  phe- 
nomena, but  of  a  simple  temporary  interpretation  of  a 
certain  particular  phenomenon  or  a  certain  particular 
group  of  phenomena.     Even  if  false,  it  carries  its  cor- 


140    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

recti ve,  for  it  contains  in  itself  the  project  and  the  plan 
of  an  experimentation  by  which  it  can  immediately  be 
confirmed  or  disproved. 

It  does  not  seem  to  us  that,  up  to  the  present  time, 
suggestionists  have  thought  —  with  rare  exceptions  — 
of  supporting  their  affirmations  and  their  deductions  by 
proofs,  and  especially  by  experimental  countcrproofs. 
Their  method  consists,  in  general,  in  showing  that  sug- 
gestion can  produce  —  and  consequently  explain  — 
all  the  parapsychic  phenomena.  They  conclude  that  it 
is  suggestion  which  produces  and  explains  the  phenom- 
ena in  every  case,  even  where  it  is  impossible  to  prove 
that  it  may  be  present  and  active.  When  it  can  be 
proved  that  suggestion  is  certainly  absent  and  has  not 
been  able  to  act  in  any  way,  then  it  must  be  concluded, 
according  to  them,  that  the  phenomena  are  in  reality 
imaginary,  illusory  —  in  a  word,  unscientific. 

First  of  all,  let  us  consider  suggestion  in  itself: 
Does  it  carry  its  own  explanation  ? 

"  Yes,"  says  the  suggestionists;  *'  for  it  is  explained 
by  suggestibility,  which  is  natural  to  every  human  brain. 
On  the  one  hand,  every  human  being  is  made  to  believe 
what  is  said  to  him,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  suffi- 
cient for  him  to  believe  in  order  to  be  made  to  realize 
his  belief,  either  in  the  field  of  perception  or  in  that  of 
action." 

Thus  suggestion  Is  explained  theoretically;  and  in 
order  to  verify  the  theory  experimentally,  the  sugges- 
tionists are  content  to  show  that,  by  using  the  word  to 
bring  the  credulity  of  a  subject  into  play,  he  Is  effectively 
made  to  see  or  to  do  the  most  Improbable  things.  This 
manner  of  reasoning  and  experimenting  is  that  which 


SUGGESTION  141 

Bacon  called  an  induction  "per  enumerationem  sim^ 
plicem,  ubi  non  reperitur  instantia  contradictoria  *' — ■ 
induction  by  simple  enumeration,  where  they  do  not  give 
themselves  the  trouble  to  seek  contradictory  facts. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  people  who  are  suggestioned 
with  the  greatest  ease  by  the  word  of  others.  But 
does  this  signify  that  they  are  always  and  necessarily 
people  of  a  credulous  nature?  Are  there  not  also 
people  —  as  in  the  case  of  Laverdant  — ^who  are  in 
no  way  credulous,  and  upon  whom,  however,  suggestion 
acts  in  spite  of  their  incredulity?  Inversely,  are  there 
not  people  who,  believing  in  the  all-power  of  sugges- 
tion, ardently  desirous  of  being  suggestioned,  do  not 
succeed,  nevertheless,  in  realizing  the  suggestions  that 
are  made  upon  them? 

It  is  these  negative  cases  —  which  savants  too  often 
believe  themselves  able  to  be  rid  of  by  qualifying  as 
exceptional  —  which  are  the  really  significant  and  in- 
structive cases ;  for,  in  preventing  us  from  stopping  at 
the  apparent  causes,  they  orient  our  researches  toward 
the  determination  of  the  real  causes. 

We  have  already  shown  that  the  hypothesis  of  sug- 
gestion is  not  sufficient  to  explain  all  the  characteristics 
of  hypnotism.  It  explains  neither  the  exclusive  rap- 
port of  the  subject  with  the  hypnotizer,  nor  the  trans- 
missibility  of  this  rapport  to  an  assistant  placed  in  con- 
tact with  the  hypnotizer.  It  explains  neither  the  spon- 
taneous anesthesia  of  the  subject,  nor  the  consecutive 
amnesia.  Nor  does  it  explain  the  bringing  into  play 
of  curative  powers  of  the  organism,  and  perhaps  other 
still  more  mysterious  powers.  And  there  are  many 
other  circumstances  it  does  not  explain.     These  may 


142  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

not  be  encountered  in  all  cases,  but  they  are  observed 
frequently  enough  to  demand  an  explanation  of  any 
hypothesis  which  pretends  to  give  us  "  the  key  to  all 
the  phenomena  of  hypnosis." 

There  is  no  question  that,  with  these  characteristics 
once  known,  it  is  always  possible  to  try  to  reproduce 
them,  to  imitate  them,  we  would  unhesitatingly  say  to 
simulate  them,  by  means  of  suggestion.  One  must 
necessarily  recognize  that  suggestion  is  quite  an  extraor- 
dinary principle  of  imitation  and  of  simulation.  For 
example,  it  can  be  suggested  to  a  subject  that,  once 
asleep,  he  will  be  en  rapport  with  his  hypnotizer  only; 
and  in  this  case  the  exclusive  rapport  —  the  work  of 
suggestion  —  will  imitate,  simulate  this  same  rapport 
as  it  is  produced  spontaneously  in  other  cases  quite 
apart  from  suggestion.  Similarly,  it  can  be  suggested 
to  a  subject  that  all  his  sensitiveness  will  be  abolished 
when  he  is  asleep ;  and  in  this  case  the  total  anesthesia 
—  the  work  of  suggestion  —  will  imitate,  simulate  the 
same  anesthesia  that  is  produced  spontaneously  in 
other  cases  without  suggestion.  And  so  on.  But, 
we  say,  in  the  same  way,  the  purgative  effects  of  castor- 
oil  can  be  imitated,  simulated  in  a  subject  by  making 
him  swallow  clear  water :  can  it  be  concluded  that  any 
one  who  takes  castor-oil  outside  of  all  expressed  sug- 
gestion is  in  reality  purged  only  by  virtue  of  a  tacit 
suggestion  ? 

It  is  this  kind  of  reasoning,  or  rather  sophism,  that 
is  the  basis  of  all  the  pretended  experimental  demon- 
strations of  the  exclusive  suggestionists. 

On  one  hand,  however  great  this  power  of  imita- 
tion and  simulation  may  be,  It  is  not  without  weakness 


SUGGESTION  143 

and  limitations.  We  have  more  than  once  impera- 
tively assured  a  subject  that  when  he  was  asleep  he 
would  be  en  rapport  with  no  one  but  the  operator;  or 
that  he  would  lose  all  tactile  sensibility;  or  that  when 
awakened  he  would  have  no  recollection  of  what  had 
happened  during  his  sleep.  Yet,  in  spite  of  our  sug- 
gestions, the  subject  would  continue  to  be  en  rapport 
with  all  the  assistants;  to  feel  all  the  contacts;  to  re- 
member all  that  we  had  said  or  done  to  him. 

It  Is  these  characteristics  of  deep  somnambulism,  such 
as  the  transmissibility  of  the  rapport  by  contact  or  con- 
duction, or  such  as  the  exteriorization  of  the  sensitive- 
ness, that  suggestion  alone,  without  recourse  to  fraud, 
will  remain  always  powerless  to  imitate. 

The  great  tactic  of  the  pure  suggestionlsts  consists 
in  denying  all  the  phenomena  which  cannot  be  explained 
or  produced  by  suggestion  alone. 

"  We  have  never  constated,"  they  say,  "  the  ex- 
teriorization of  the  sensitiveness,  the  transmissibility 
of  the  rapport  by  contact  or  conduction,  clairvoyance, 
etc.;  therefore  these  phenomena  cannot  exist.  Those 
who  believed  they  observed  them  have  been  duped  by 
the  fraud  of  the  subjects  or  by  their  own  illusion." 

We  should  like  to  know  if  the  suggestionlsts  have 
ever  tried  to  be  placed  In  the  conditions  which  would 
permit  them  to  constate  these  phenomena.  Having 
systematically  decided  never  to  employ  in  their  experi- 
ments anything  but  suggestion,  they  are  thus  condemned 
never  to  see  anything  but  suggestion,  and  It  is  with 
entire  good  faith  that  they  declare  that  there  Is  not, 
and  cannot  be,  anything  else. 

It  Is  thus  that  Dr.  Bernhelm  held  as  valueless  Dr. 


144    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

Liebeault's  curious  work  upon  Zoomagnetisme,  in  which 
he  admitted  the  existence  of  a  principle  analogous  in 
its  effects  to  suggestion,  but  different  in  its  nature,  and 
which  was  no  other  than  the  old  animal  magnetism  of 
Mesmer,  Puysegur,  Deleuze,  du  Potet,  etc. 

It  is  thus,  also,  that  all  the  domain  of  cr)rptopsy- 
chism,  of  telepathy,  of  mental  suggestion,  and,  more 
especially,  of  spiritism,  is  closed  to  the  partizans  of  a 
school  which  considers  that  the  boundaries  of  its  doc- 
trine are  those  of  science  and  of  reality. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AN   UNKNOWN   FORCE 
Animal  Magnetism,  or  "  Biactinism  " 


Does  the  human  organism  really  possess  the  prop- 
erty of  radiating  a  magnetic  influence  capable  of  acting 
at  a  distance  upon  another  human  organism? 

This  is  a  question  upon  which  the  savants  cannot 
agree. 

The  problem,  therefore,  is  an  interesting  one,  and 
it  presents  such  great  importance  —  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  general  orientation  of  the  psychical  sci- 
ences —  that  it  is  necessary  to  examine  it  here  in  detail. 

Mesmer  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  affirm  the 
existence  of  this  radiation  of  the  human  organism, 
which  he  compared  to  that  of  the  magnet,  or  rather  he 
considered  it  as  being  —  as  is  the  radiation  of  the  mag- 
net —  a  particular  case,  a  particular  form  of  a  uni- 
versal energy.  In  any  event,  the  usage  of  calling  this 
radiation  animal  magnetism,  sometimes  modified  to 
vital  magnetism,  began  with  Mesmer. 

Perhaps  a  part  of  the  disfavor  which  official  scien- 
tists still  attach  to  all  affirmation  or  even  to  all  study 
of  human  radiation  comes  really  from  this  name.  It 
is  not  the  only  case  in  which  the  words  are  inappro- 
priate to  the  ideas.     The  expression  animal  magnetism 

145 


146  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

not  only  designates  a  certain  ensemble  of  facts;  it  in- 
volves at  the  same  time  an  hypothesis;  it  anticipates 
the  explanation  of  these  facts.  Consequently,  all  those 
to  whom  this  hypothesis  is  repugnant,  or  who  consider 
this  explanation  inadmissible,  will  reject  in  toto  the 
facts  themselves,  refusing  to  examine  them,  or  declar- 
ing them  a  priori  impossible,  illusory,  inexistent. 

Is  this  not  what  happened  to  the  king's  commission- 
ers who  were  charged  with  officially  controlling  the  as- 
sertions of  Mesmer? 

We  find  at  the  present  time  a  similar  confusion,  with 
the  same  regrettable  consequences,  regarding  spiritism. 
This  word,  also,  is  used  wrongly  to  designate  two  very 
different  things,  wholly  distinct  from  each  other :  ( i ) 
a  certain  ensemble  of  facts,  which  we  have  called  spirit- 
istic or  spiritoidal;  (2)  a  doctrine  proposed  by  a  par- 
ticular group  of  people  in  order  to  explain  these  facts. 

To  admit  the  existence  of  spiritoidal  facts,  at  least 
as  objects  of  possible  study,  is  not  by  any  means  to 
affirm  the  truth  of  this  doctrine.  Nevertheless,  those 
who  reject  the  doctrine  believe  themselves  ipso  facto 
authorized  to  deny  the  facts. 

Similarly,  the  term  animal  magnetism  is  wrongly 
used  to  designate,  at  one  and  the  same  time :  ( i )  the 
facts  in  which  a  sort  of  action  of  the  human  organism 
at  a  distance  seems  to  be  manifested,  and  which  we 
have  named  magnetoidal  without  pretending  in  any 
way  to  prejudge  their  nature;  (2)  a  theory,  that  of 
Mesmer  and  his  disciples,  which  is  presented  to  us  as  a 
systematic  explanation  of  these  facts,  more  or  less 
assimilated  to  the  phenomena  of  physical  magnetism. 

Could  not  the  facts  of  animal  magnetism  be  ad- 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  147 

mitted,  at  least  as  objects  of  possible  study,  without 
being  obliged  at  the  same  time  to  profess  the  doctrine 
of  animal  magnetism,  either  under  the  form  that  Mes- 
mer  gave  it,  or  under  any  other  particular  form  ? 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  remedy  this  confusion  would 
be  to  renounce  absolutely  this  traditional  term  animal 
magnetism  and  to  employ  wholly  new  words,  neolog- 
isms taken  from  the  Greek  or  the  Latin.  Braid  and 
Bernheim  did  this  in  grouping  under  the  names  hypno- 
tism and  suggestion  the  phenomena  described  by  them 
and  which  they  considered  —  rightly  or  wrongly  —  as 
really  different  from  those  of  animal  magnetism. 

Unfortunately,  it  is  very  difficult  to  overcome  usage 
and  tradition ;  and,  indeed,  few  efforts  have  been  made 
in  this  connection.  The  only  ones  that,  to  our  knowl- 
edge, can  be  cited  are  those  of  Reichenbach,  calling  od 
or  odyle  the  supposed  agent  of  human  radiation  (ca- 
pable, moreover,  of  producing  effects  of  the  same  kind 
outside  of  man  and  in  all  nature)  ;  and  that  of  Profes- 
sor Thury  (of  Geneva)  giving  this  same  agent  the 
name  psychode.  But  these  denominations  remain  con- 
fined to  the  works  of  their  inventors.  This  is  true, 
also,  of  the  term  ecteneique^  (ectenic  state,  ectenic 
force)  by  which  this  same  Professor  Thury  designated 
the  state  in  which  a  human  being  can  extend  the  limits 
of  his  action  beyond  his  own  organism,  and  the  force 
which  is  developed  in  this  state. 

Even  though  these  words  may  have  the  advantage 

1  From  the  Greek  word  extension.  An  abbreviated  form  of  the 
word,  ecten,  has  been  proposed,  we  believe — but  without  much  more 
success  —  to  designate  the  force  itself,  and  ectenic  to  qualify  all  that  is 
connected  with  this  force. 


148    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

of  not  involving  any  hypothesis  as  to  the  essential 
nature  an^  the  deep  cause  of  the  facts  being  considered, 
none  of  them  has  succeeded  in  supplanting  in  common 
usage  the  old  name  of  animal  magnetism.  We  have 
a  proof  of  this  in  the  title  given  by  Barety  to  his  great 
work:  Le  magnetisme  animal  etudie  sous  le  nom  de 
force  neurique,  where  the  new  name,  neuric  force  dares 
to  introduce  itself  only  under  the  shelter  and  patronage 
of  animal  magnetism,  in  spite  of  all  the  discredit 
attached  to  it  in  scientific  circles. 

It  seems  very  necessary,  however,  to  break  with  all 
associations  of  ideas  which  this  expression  animal 
magnetism  carries. 

It  is  not  doubted  that  the  facts  called  animal  mag- 
netism present,  at  first  sight,  singular  analogies  with 
the  facts  of  physical  magnetism.  But  these  analogies 
can  be  only  apparent  and  superficial ;  it  Is  very  possible 
that  a  more  thorough  study  would  cause  us  to  con- 
clude that  there  is  no  essential  resemblance  between 
these  two  orders  of  facts.  Moreover,  the  conception 
that  we  form  of  physical  magnetism  is  itself  pro- 
visional and  largely  hypothetical.  It  already  has 
changed  many  times,  and  undoubtedly  will  continue  to 
change  as  science  progresses. 

Is  It  rational  to  link  thus,  by  giving  them  the  same 
denomination,  two  orders  of  phenomena  which  cannot 
have  in  reality  anything  In  common,  as  If  It  were  pre- 
tended to  explain  each  of  them  by  one  and  the  same 
principle  ? 

We  would  suggest  replacing,  or  at  least  adding  to, 
the  term  animal  magnetism,  by  a  new  expression. 
This  should  be  free  from  all  preconceived  idea,  by  a 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  149 

neologism  taken  from  the  Greek,  alas!  (but  how  can 
we  do  otherwise?)  and  which  means  nothing  more  than 
"  human  radiation  "  or  "  vital  radiation." 

In  these  conditions,  the  word  biactinism  is  presented 
to  our  mind;  for  It  means  exactly  "  radiation  of  life," 
from  two  Greek  words,  ptos  life,  and  aKns  ray.^ 

''  Biactinism "  could  he  used,  then,  to  define  the 
ensemble  of  facts  when  there  is  manifested  in  living 
beings,  and  particularly  in  human  beings,  a  radiating 
influence,  a  radio-active  energy,  susceptible  of  being 
exercised  at  a  distance  over  other  animate  beings,  or 
even  upon  inanimate  objects. 

Observation  and  experimentation  alone  can  enable 
us  to  know  by  progressive  steps  the  different  properties 
of  this  energy,  the  different  effects  of  this  influence. 
Meanwhile,  however,  it  can  be  said  now  that  they 
present  close  analogies  to  those  of  the  natural  radiating 
forces  already  known:  heat,  light,  electricity,  magnet- 
ism. 

Until  further  researches  are  made,  biactinism  must 
be  considered  as  constituting  a  special  order  of  facts, 
to  be  studied  In  Itself,  and  of  which  the  rapports  with 
the  other  orders  of  natural  facts  must  not  be  prejudged 
in  virtue  of  a  priori  conceptions,  but  determined  experi- 
mentally, in  proportion  to  the  progress  of  their 
study. 

2 Perhaps  the  word  zoactinism  might  be  more  correct;  for,  as  has 
been  remarked,  the  Greek  jSi'os  means,  rather,  moral  and  social  life; 
organic  life,  an  attribute  common  to  animals  and  vegetables,  would 
be  rather  designated  by  the  word  fw?;.  But  usage  has  already  pre- 
vailed, in  all  modern  languages,  in  employing  the  root  hio  in  the 
second  sense  —  as  proved  by  the  words  biology,  aerobia,  microbe,  etc., 
which  incontestably  refer  to  organic  life. 


ISO     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

II 

The  first  question  that  arises  regarding  biactinism  is, 
very  evidently,  the  following : 

Does  biactinism  exist?  Is  it  really  true  that  a  living 
organism  generates  —  in  conditions  which  permit  it  to 
be  established  with  certainty  —  a  radiating  force  ca- 
pable of  acting  even  at  a  distance  upon  another  organ- 
ism? 

We  have  indicated  elsewhere  ^  the  reasons  which 
necessitate  an  affirmative  answer  to  this  question,  at  the 
same  time  showing  the  processes  and  the  methods  by 
which  the  effects  and  the  conditions  of  biactinism  can 
be  studied  scientifically.  We  shall  review  these,  how- 
ever, in  the  present  chapter. 

Let  us  consider,  for  a  moment,  that  the  question  is 
answered  in  the  affirmative.  What  shall  we  under- 
stand by  "  radiation  of  an  organism  operating  at  a 
distance"?  For  biactinism,  or  animal  magnetism, 
would  consist  in  that,  according  to  the  definition  we 
have  given. 

From  the  strictly  metaphysical  point  of  view,  it  can 
undoubtedly  be  claimed,  with  Leibnitz  and  the  author 
of  a  recent  work,^  that  the  notions  of  radiation  and  of 
action  at  a  distance  are  illusory,  entirely  relative  to 
false  appearances,  and  that,  in  reality,  there  is  neither 
action  nor  radiation. 

"  Every  time,"  says  the  author  of  Uunivers-organ- 
isme,  "  that  a  body  seems  to  act  at  a  distance,  it  is 
because  there  exists,  between  the  body  which  acts  and 
the  body  which  reacts,   an  intermediary  agent  which 

^  Our  Hidden  Forces. 

*  L'unwers-organisme,  Bardonnet.     (Revue  philosophique,  1914.) 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  151 

transmits  the  excitation,  having  first  undergone  it  itself. 
This  intermediary,  in  acoustic  phenomena,  we  know,  is 
the  atmospheric  air;  but  it  exists  also  in  all  other  orders 
of  phenomena ;  and  it  is,  then,  cosmic  matter  J* 

Properly  speaking,  the  force  does  not  radiate,  Is  not 
transmitted;  or,  as  Leibnitz  said,  there  Is  no  really 
transitive  action,  no  action  which  passes  from  one  sub- 
ject to  another  as  a  rider  would  jump  from  one  horse 
to  another  because  "  force  Is  the  act,  and  the  act  Is 
necessarily  Inherent  to  Its  agent.  An  act  cannot  go 
far  from  Its  agent." 

Let  us  note  that  what  Is  said  here  of  "  force  "  can 
equally  be  said  of  "  motion,"  of  "  excitation,"  of  "  sen- 
sation," of  "  thought."  Taken  literally,  such  as  ex- 
pression as  this:  "  motion  Is  transmitted  from  one  body 
to  another,"  Is  nonsensical,  an  absurdity.  The  motion 
of  a  body  Is  not  separated,  cannot  be  separated,  from 
that  body  Itself :  It  Is  a  state  of  the  body.  It  Is  the  body 
Itself  In  the  state  of  motion.  Thus  the  motion  of  a 
first  body  A  cannot  become  the  motion  of  a  second 
body  B ;  but  B  can  be  brought  to  move  as  A,  and  because 
A  is  already  In  a  state  of  motion. 

There  is  not,  in  that,  a  single  movement  passing  from 
one  subject  to  another,  but  two  movements  produced 
successively,  one  because  of  the  other.  In  two  different 
subjects.  If  It  be  understood  otherwise,  the  movement 
then  becomes  a  third  body,  a  sort  of  invisible  sub- 
stance. 

In  the  same  way.  It  is  erroneous  to  speak  of  an  ex- 
citation as  being  transmitted.  Following  and  because 
of  a  first  excitation  in  the  subject  A,  a  second  excitation, 
more  or  less  similar,  is  produced  In  B;  and  so  forth. 


152     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

But  it  is  not  one  excitation,  abstract,  impersonal,  anony- 
mous, which  the  subjects  pass  to  each  other  in  some 
way  from  hand  to  hand. 

Similarly,  also,  when  we  say  that  a  nerve  transmits  a 
sensation,  we  must  no  more  take  this  expression  liter- 
ally than  when  we  say  that  the  telegraph  transmits  a 
despatch  or  that  a  letter  transmits  to  us  the  thought  of 
its  author.  The  sensation  of  pricking  is  not  an  un- 
known something  starting  from  the  needle-point,  pro- 
ceeding along  a  nerve,  entering  the  brain  and  then  the 
consciousness  of  the  individual.  It  is  a  series  of  dis- 
tinct states,  specifically  different  from  one  another, 
which  follow  in  a  certain  order  and  of  which  each  is, 
so  to  speak,  the  promoter,  the  excitator  of  the  one  that 
follows  it. 

All  this  is  very  true ;  but  it  is  true  also  that  in  prac- 
tise there  is  no  serious  disadvantage  in  employing  the 
language  of  appearances,  so  long  as  one  is  not  led 
astray  by  so  doing.  Astronomy  itself,  which  well 
knows  that  the  sun  does  not  rotate  round  the  earth, 
does  not  hesitate  to  speak,  in  everyday  language,  of  the 
rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun. 

Therefore  those  very  savants  who  raise  objections 
against  the  radiation  of  a  force  and  its  action  at  a  dis- 
tance, end  by  declaring  that  "  evidently,  on  the  whole, 
things  happen  more  or  less  as  if  cosmic  matter  does  not 
exist  and  as  if  the  force  radiates  at  a  distance."  This 
is  why,  undoubtedly,  led  by  the  force  of  habit,  they 
themselves  employ  expressions  which  they  denounce, 
and  speak  freely  of  transmitted  excitation.^ 

5  "Our  peripheric  nerves  end  at  the  nerve  centers,  and  every  time 
they  are  excited  they  have  nothing  so  urgent  as  the  transmission  of  their 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  153 

These  expressions,  precisely  because  they  present 
things  en  gros,  have  the  advantage  of  a  brevity  and  a 
convenience  that  would  be  difficult  to  obtain  with  more 
precise  and  exact  words. 

Let  us  say,  however,  that  the  objection  which  we 
oppose  here  is  less  against  the  conception  of  biactinism 
or  animal  magnetism  in  particular  than  against  all  the 
actual  conceptions  of  physics,  or  rather  against  the 
vocabulary  which  serves  to  express  them.^  It  appears 
very  doubtful  to  us  that  the  great  majority  of  physicists, 
when  they  speak  of  action  at  a  distance,  of  force  which 
radiates  or  is  disseminated  or  transmitted  from  one 
body  to  another,  etc.,  understand  all  these  expressions 
in  a  literal  sense  and  see  in  them  anything  but  short- 
ened forms,  more  or  less  metaphoric  and  in  any  case 
convenient  practically,  to  represent  realities  that  they 
know  tD  be  appreciably  different  from  that  representa- 
tion. 

A  precedent  is  created  when  saying  to  a  contem- 
porary physicist  that  there  is  no  action  at  a  distance  in 
the  proper  meaning  of  the  term;  for  he  knows  very 
well  that  all  action  between  two  bodies  distant  from 
each  other,  whether  it  be  a  question  of  heat,  light,  or 
electricity,  suppose  an  intermediary;  and  it  is  this  inter- 
mediary which  is  designated  by  the  name  of  etheric 
ambient  or  cosmic  ether. 

To  call  it  cosmic  matter  is  but  to  add  one  more  name 
to  all  those  it  has  received  since  the  time  of  Descartes, 

excitation  to  the  center  to  which  they  are  bound;  this,  in  its  turn, 
transmits  it  to  the  others  and  in  particular  to  the  '  self.'  " —  Bardonnet. 
6  **  This  conception  of  an  animal  magnetism  which  frees  itself  from 
the  individual  and  radiates  imitates  the  classical  conceptions  of  force; 
but  it  is  false  here  as  in  physics." — Bardonnet. 


154     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

who  appears  to  have  had  the  first  idea  of  it  when  he 
called  it  subtle  matter,'^ 

It  would  be  absurd  to  pretend  that,  when  certain  of 
our  contemporaries  speak  of  heat,  light,  electricity,  or 
animal  magnetism  as  circulating  and  radiating  forces, 
they  really  conceive  each  of  these  forces  as  being  "  a 
quintesssence,  a  fluid,  an  imponderable  element,  capable 
of  circulating,  of  being  discharged,  and  arrested  '^  as 
"  a  changeable  principle,  conductible,  freed,  radiating, 
rarefied  or  accumulated;  stored,  concentrated,  trans- 
formed," etc. 

We  should  then  distinguish  in  all  description  or  ex- 
pression of  natural  facts,  that  which  is  essential  and 
that  which  is  accessory:  the  true  rapports  of  the  phe- 
nomena and  the  more  or  less  imperfect  images  by  which 
we  represent  them  in  our  minds.  And  we  should  un- 
derstand that  there  is  not  an  irremediable  Inconvenience 
in  employing  this  language  of  images,  provided  we  can 
always  interpret  it  in  the  language  of  true  rapports, 
when  necessary  to  do  so. 

It  is  the  same  conclusion  which  is  reached  by  Bardon- 
net  when  he  says : 

■^  It  is  by  the  movement  of  subtle  matter  that  Descartes  explains  not 
only  all  the  particularities  of  fire  (light  and  heat)  and  of  the  magnet, 
but  also  "  an  infinity  of  effects  altogether  rare  and  marvelous,"  and 
especially  those  which  are  designated  to-day  under  the  name  of  psy- 
chical phenomena,  "  as  the  wounds  of  a  dead  person  can  be  made  to 
bleed  when  the  murderer  is  approaching;  to  stir  the  imagination  of 
those  who  sleep,  or  even  also  of  those  who  are  awake,  and  to  give  them 
thoughts  which  inform  them  of  things  happening  far  from  them  and 
make  them  feel  the  great  afillctions  or  the  great  joys  of  an  intimate 
friend,  the  bad  designs  of  an  assassin,  and  similar  things."  This  curi- 
ous passage  from  Principes  de  la  philosophie  shows  well  that  Descartes 
had  not  disdained  initiation  in  the  sciences  called  occult,  as  he  reveals 
in  the  first  part  of  Discours  de  la  methode. 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  155 

"  The  doctrine  of  animal  magnetism  is,  then,  false  in 
that  it  affirms  a  magnetism,  that  is  to  say  a  principle 
which  is  freed  and  propagated  outside  of  the  individ- 
ual; but  true  in  that  it  affirms  an  exterior  action,  a 
physical  influence,  of  the  operator."  Farther  on  he 
says:  "The  dispute  among  suggestionists,  mesmer- 
ists, and  hypnotists,  can  be  understood.  In  reality,  it 
is  the  mesmerists  who  are  right;  at  least  in  that  which 
they  affirm  a  physical  influence  out  of  the  ordinary. 
This  physical  influence  consists  not  in  animal  magnet- 
ism but  in  another  method  of  excitation." 

One  can  well  see,  from  this  last  passage,  that  the 
whole  difficulty  here  comes  from  the  associations  of 
ideas  inseparably  attached  to  the  traditional  term 
"  animal  magnetism,"  even  though  this  term  essen- 
tially designates  for  us  only  a  "  method  of  excitation  " 
which,  instead  of  employing,  as  do  suggestion  and  hyp- 
notism, the  ordinary  senses,  employs  those  of  a  special 
sensibility,  the  sensibility  to  certain  excitations  of  ether- 
ic  or  cosmic  matter. 

The  difference  between  our  doctrine  and  that  which 
we  oppose  is  but  that  of  a  word. 

It  is  necessary  for  us  to  recognize  that  a  doctrine  or 
an  hypothesis,  such  as  that  of  animal  magnetism,  can  be 
defined  only  by  comparison  with  other  doctrines  or 
hypotheses  which  are  found,  so  to  speak,  in  concurrence 
with  it  and  contradict  it  upon  certain  points  where  re- 
ciprocally it  contradicts  them. 

Perhaps  this  was  not  so  in  the  time  of  Mesmer  and 
Puysegur,  or  even  of  Deleuze  and  Du  Potet.  But  ac- 
tually that  which  Is  essential,  uniquely  essential,  in  the 
hypothesis  of  animal  magnetism  is  that  by  which  this 


156  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

hypothesis  is  opposed  to  those  of  suggestion  and  hyp- 
notism; all  the  rest  is  accessory  and  negligible. 

The  doctrines  of  suggestion  and  of  hypnotism  agree 
in  placing  exclusively  in  the  physical  and  psychological 
state  of  the  subject  the  necessary  and  sufficient  reason 
of  all  the  parapsychic  phenomena  and  in  refusing  to 
acknowledge  all  real  and  direct  action  of  the  operator. 
The  doctrine  of  animal  magnetism  or  blactinism  con- 
sists, above  all,  in  attributing  to  the  operator,  to  his 
personality,  to  his  own  action,  an  importance  at  least 
equal  to  that  of  the  subject  in  the  production  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  parapsychic  phenomena:  viz.,  all  those 
which  rightfully  would  not  appear  to  be  explicable  by 
the  sole  indications  of  hypnotism  and  suggestion. 

The  partizans  of  suggestion  could  claim,  It  Is  true, 
that  they  recognize  this  action  of  the  operator;  for  it  Is 
the  word  or  the  gesture  of  the  suggestioner  which  is, 
according  to  them,  the  cause  of  all  effects  observed. 
But  any  such  action  Is  of  a  moral  or  social  order :  It  has 
nothing  to  do  with  physiology,  nothing  to  do  with 
physics.  It  is,  moreover  indirect.  In  that  It  Is  created 
to  arouse  an  idea  In  the  mind  of  the  subject,  and  it  is 
the  idea  which  is  the  true  cause.  Suppress  the  inter- 
vention of  the  operator  and  create  the  idea  in  any 
other  way  whatsoever:  the  phenomenon  will  not  con- 
tinue^ much  less  he  produced. 

Entirely  on  the  contrary,  in  the  hypothesis  of  blac- 
tinism, the  operator  influences  the  subject  by  a  special 
action,  wholly  independent  of  the  word  and  the  gesture, 
an  action  of  a  physiological  and  physical  order,  al- 
though all  psychological  element  may  not  necessarily 
be  excluded. 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  157 

Evidently,  this  hypothesis  has  the  disadvantage  of 
introducing  an  unknown  quantity  in  the  problem:  i.e., 
the  nature,  not  yet  fully  determined,  of  this  special 
action  attributed  to  the  operator.  But  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion, at  the  moment,  of  criticizing  it,  of  weighing  it. 
The  question  is  merely  that  of  an  exact  conception  and 
understanding  of  it.  True  or  false,  it  consists  in  be- 
lieving that  certain  parapsychic  phenomena  are  a  func- 
tion not  only  of  a  special  physical  and  psychological 
state  of  the  subject,  but  also  of  a  special  physical  and 
psychological  state  of  the  operator. 

To  affirm  this  is  to  affirm  animal  magnetism,  by 
whatever  name  it  may  be  called,  and  in  whatever  way  it 
may  be  imagined  in  detail ;  to  deny  it  is  to  deny  animal 
magnetism.  Nothing  that  is  added  to  this  funda- 
mental postulate  can,  at  least  for  the  moment,  be  con- 
sidered as  essential. 

Ill 

Does  this  mean  that  it  is  useless  to  try  to  obtain  a 
less  vague  and  less  abstract  idea  of  this  action  sui 
generis  that  the  operator  is  supposed  to  exert  upon  the 
subject,  where  it  determines  certain  parapsychic  effects? 

On  the  contrary,  the  advantage  of  this  hypothesis  is 
that  it  opens  to  us  a  vast  field  of  researches,  whose  aim 
is  precisely  to  determine  more  and  more  the  unknown 
which  surrounds  it. 

But  this  progressive  determination  must  be  made 
by  observation  and  experimentation,  not  by  imagina- 
tion and  reasoning  only;  and  the  results  thus  obtained 
gradually  must  always  remain  subject  to  revision  and 
correction,  as  all  that  which  comes  under  the  experi- 
mental method. 


158     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

It  is,  then,  natural  and  inevitable  that  those  who  ad- 
mit of  a  biomagnetic  or  biactinic  action  because  of  cer- 
tain facts  observed  by  them,  endeavor  to  represent  it 
more  or  less  concretely  from  what  they  know  of  these 
facts,  without  concealing  the  fact  that  this  representa- 
tion really  comprises  the  artificial  and  provisional.  It 
is  thus  that  they  are  brought  to  seek  the  analogies  that 
any  such  action  can  present  with  other  actions  or  forces 
already  known :  on  the  one  hand  with  the  nerve  force, 
on  the  other  hand  with  the  forces  called  radiating  and 
circulating  —  heat,  light,  electricity,  magnetism,  etc. 

(^  It  does  not  seem  possible  to  deny  the  existence  of  the 
nerve  force;  but  it  is  very  necessary  to  acknowledge 
that  its  nature  is  thoroughly  unknown  to  us.  We  know 
its  principal  effects ;  we  know  that  it  is  the  agent  which 
transmits  to  the  nerve  centers  the  excitations  coming 
from  the  periphery  and  gives  birth  to  the  sensations. 
It  is  this  also  which  transmits  to  the  muscles  the  or- 
ders of  the  Will,  and  determines  the  movements  of  the 
exterior  organs.  (It  is  this,  too,  which  excites  and 
regulates  the  different  vital  functions :  respiration,  cir- 
culation, assimilation,  and  catabolism.  But  we  do  not 
know  what  constitutes  it.  The  greater  part  of  the  time 
it  is  believed  to  be  like  galvanic  electricity,  as  a  force 
which  circulates  in  its  conductors  between  the  centers  or 
focuses  where  it  would  be  accumulated  and  condensed ; 
but  one  must  appreciate  that  this  Is  only  a  rough  sup- 
position, and  that  It  may  be  very  far  from  the  reality. 

^^  Be  this  as  it  may,  if  this  force  be  supposed  capable, 
under  certain  conditions,  of  acting  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  organism  in  which  It  is,  and  of  working  thus  a  sort 
of  transfusion  or  of  communication  of  sensitiveness,  of 


INDUCING  SOMNAMBULISM 

At  the  time  of  the  experiment,  when  this  photograph  was  taken, 
one  of  the  assistants  went  into  an  even  deeper  state  of  sleep,  en- 
tirely through  sympathy. 


•     *^    ''  j^c 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  159 

will,  of  vitality,  between  two  different  organisms,  a  con- 
ception of  the  biactinic  force  can  be  gained,  which  sums 
up  the  principal  facts  upon  which  is  based  the  affirma- 
tion of  those  who  believe  in  its  reality. 

This  force  would  be,  then,  the  nerve  force  radiating 
from  one  organism  to  another,  circulating  from  one 
organism  to  another. 

But  our  conception  of  the  nerve  force  is  itself  very 
vague,  very  indeterminate,  and  the  only  means  we  have 
of  making  it  more  precise  is  to  compare  it  to  physical 
forces  to  which  it  presents  certain  analogies,  princi- 
pally electricity.  Hence  there  is  not,  perhaps,  great 
inconvenience  —  there  may  even  be  some  advantage  — 
in  trying  to  conceive  the  biactinic  force  in  the  light  of 
what  we  know  of  its  analogies  to  physical  forces,  dis- 
regarding all  speculation  upon  nerve  energy  or  nerve 
force. 

Considered  from  this  viewpoint  —  which  brings  to 
mind  that  of  the  early  partizans  of  animal  magnetism 
—  the  biactinic  force  can  be  regarded,  if  not  as  a  form 
of  electricity  or  of  magnetism,  at  least  as  an  electroidal 
or  magnetoidal  force,  the  effects  and  laws  of  which 
are  comparable,  mutatis  mutandis,  to  those  of  the 
modes  of  universal  energy.  One  will  then  be  justified 
in  speaking  to  his  subject  of  conductibility,  of  polarity, 
wholly  as  if  it  were  a  question  of  electrical  or  magnetic 
phenomena. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  idea  which  will  be 
gained  of  the  biactinic  force  will  itself  undergo  varia- 
tions corresponding  to  those  of  the  general  conception 
of  electricity  and  magnetism ;  and  it  is  this  which  takes 
place  historically.     For  example,  from  the  time  when 


i6o    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

physicists  compared  electricity  to  a  fluid,  the  mesmer- 
ists attributed  equally  to  a  fluid  the  effects  produced  by 
passes,  the  gaze,  etc.  At  the  present  time  it  is  not  a 
question  of  fluid  but  of  vibrations,  undulations,  etc.  It 
is,  therefore,  a  phraseology,  or,  if  we  may  be  per- 
mitted this  expression,  an  idealogy,  of  the  same  kind, 
that  tends  more  and  more  to  be  applied  to  biactinic 
phenomena.  If  in  the  future  a  new  and  wholly  differ- 
ent conception  of  electricity  must  be  imposed  upon  the 
generality  of  scientists,  it  will  not  fail  to  model  to  its 
image  the  conception  of  this  particular  order  of  phe- 
nomena. 

IV 

The  questions  we  have  examined  in  this  chapter  up 
to  the  present  point  are  relative  to  words  and  ideas 
rather  than  to  the  things  themselves.  They  ask  us 
how  we  shall  name  and  represent  action  at  a  distance, 
the  radiation  of  one  nervous  system  upon  another  nerv- 
ous system,  supposing  any  such  action  to  be  possible 
(and  we  have  shown  that  there  is  not,  a  priori,  any 
impossibility  in  conceiving  such  an  action).  But  the 
fundamental  question  remains : 

Does  hiactinism  exist? 

And  this  question  can  be  answered  only  by  facts. 
It  is  a  questicyn  of  proving  —  not  by  definitions  and 
reasonings,  but  by  observations  and  especially  by  ex- 
perimentation —  the  reality  of  nervous  radiations,  in 
conditions  which  leave  no  room  for  doubt. 

In  Our  Hidden  Forces  we  described  the  facts  which 
convinced  us  of  this  reality.  We  do  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  any  one  earnestly  bent  on  experimentation, 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  161 

while  observing  the  precautions  indicated,  possessing 
all  the  patience  to  conduct  his  researches  to  finahty, 
even  if  his  first  results  appears  to  be  negative,  will 
inevitably  be  convinced. 

The  great  difficulty  lies  in  the  possibility  of  confusing 
the  effects  of  suggestion  with  those  of  animal  magnet- 
ism. This,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  objection 
which  the  king's  commissioners  made  to  Mesmer  and 
his  partizans  when  they  attributed  to  imagination  all 
the  phenomena  they  had  witnessed. 

However,  this  difficulty  is  not  insurmountable.  It 
may  be  overcome,  in  experimenting,  by  following  rigor- 
ously some  very  simple  rules.^ 

Even  in  the  time  of  Mesmer  certain  observers  — 
among  them,  Antoine-Laurent  de  Jussieu  —  had  been 
able  to  constate  cases  of  biactinic  action  entirely  free 
from  all  suggestive  or  imaginative  element.  In  a  book 
written  at  that  time  we  have  found  the  description  of 
a  case  of  this  kind  which  perhaps  is  worthy  of  being 
quoted  here : 

Toward  the  end  of  November,  1778,  I  invited  Dr.  Mesmer 
to  dinner  with  me  in  a  house  where  all,  including  myself,  im- 
patiently awaited  his  productions  of  magnetic  phenomena.  .  .  . 
But  here  is  what  happened  after  dinner.  I  attest  it  as  a  fact 
which  I  followed  with  the  utmost  care,  and  which  the  witnesses 
studied  with  all  the  distrust  imaginable. 

The  company  assembled  in  the  drawing-room.  Dr.  Mesmer 
touched  successively  many  persons.  Some  of  them,  especially, 
had  extremely  irritable  nerves:  but  none  proved  sufficiently  sen- 
sitive to  be  susceptible  to  animal  magnetism. 

8  See  Our  Hidden  Forces,  Chapter  VI,  "  New  Experimental  Method 
in  Hypnology." 


i62     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

The  tutor  of  the  children  in  this  house  —  a  man  of  strong 
temperament,  robust,  well  constituted,  not  in  the  least  credulous, 
and  strengthened  in  his  incredulity  by  the  unsuccessful  attempts 
which  he  had  witnessed  —  complained  after  a  while  of  a  pain 
in  his  shoulders.  He  offered  himself  to  Dr.  Mesmer  as  the 
subject  for  a  last  attempt,  though  stron  y  persuaded  that  the 
magnetism  would  not  act  any  more  upon  him  than  it  did  upon 
those  whom  Mesmer  had  touched.  To  tell  the  truth,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  it  was  not  a  new  pro(i/^  that  he  desired,  but  a 
new  occasion  to  deride  this  practise. 

This  last  attempt,  however,  turnec  y  to  the  glory  of 

Dr.  Mesmer. 

Perceiving,  undoubtedly,  the  motive  which  brought  this  new 
actor  upon  the  scene,  and  wishing  to  give  him  the  most  con- 
vincing proof  of  his  skill,  Mesmer  refused  to  touch  him  but 
instead  directed  his  magnetic  power  against  the  subject  without 
contact  and  at  a  certain  distance. 

The  experiment  at  once  became  more  unusual  and  more  inter- 
esting. The  subject  stood  with  his  back  toward  Mesmer,  who 
presented  his  finger  at  a  distance  of  eight  feet.  As  long  as  the 
finger  remained  fixed  and  motionless,  pointing  in  the  direction 
and  held  at  the  height  of  the  subject's  shoulders,  he  did  not 
feel  any  effect;  and  the  questions  which  Mesmer  reiterated  for 
the  space  of  about  two  minutes  only  strengthened  the  subject 
more  and  more  in  his  incredulity. 

Things  were  at  this  stage  when  Mesmer  signaled  to  the  assist- 
ants to  fix  their  attention  more  closely  upon  the  subject  of  this 
singular  experiment. 

Then  he  moved  his  finger  up  and  down,  giving  it  at  the 
same  time  a  slight  circulatory  motion.  Instantly  the  subject 
said  that  he  felt  a  shivering  sensation  in  the  upper  part  of 
his  back. 

Dr.  Mesmer  suspended  his  operation.  The  subject  turned 
around,  and  attributed  the  effect  which  he  had  felt  to  the 
action  of  the  heat-register  before  which  he  had  been  standing. 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  163 

The  experiment  was  begun  again,  with  the  subject  this  time 
far  away  from  the  register.  Standing  firmly  upon  his  feet,  he 
presented  his  back  to  Mesmer.  The  same  movements,  but 
more  energetic,  more  determined,  on  the  part  of  Dr.  Mesmer, 
took  place;  and  immediately  the  same  sensations  in  the  subject's 
back,  but  less  equivi     1,  more  appreciable,  were  noted. 

The  subject  was  now  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  reality 
of  these  effects,  and  said  that  he  could  describe  them  no  better 
than  by  comparing  th'm  to  a  stream  of  hot  water  circulating  in 
the  veins  of  his  shoulders  and  all  the  upper  part  of  his  back. 

This  experime'  ■  !S^  repeated  two  or  three  times,  with  the 
same  success ;  until  tut  effect  became  so  strong  that  the  subject 
refused  to  lend  himself  to  further  experimentation.  Once 
more,  however,  the  experiment  was  performed.  The  master  of 
the  house  seized  the  tutor  by  one  arm  and  I  by  the  other,  and 
Dr.  Mesmer  proceeded  with  his  passes.  But  the  subject  broke 
violently  from  our  hands,  protesting  that  the  heat  which  he  felt 
was  unbearable.  A  moment  afterward  he  exclaimed  that  he 
was  covered  with  perspiration  over  the  part  that  had  been 
experimented  upon.  Placing  my  hand  there  —  as  did  all  the 
company  —  I  found  that  his  shirt  actually  was  soaking  wet  at 
the  back  near  the  shoulders. 

After  a  few  minutes  of  rest,  Mesmer  faced  the  subject  and 
presented  two  fingers,  one  of  each  hand,  to  the  two  lateral  parts 
of  his  chest.  The  subject  felt  in  these  places,  and  even  in  the 
whole  extent  of  his  chest,  a  similar  sensation  but  not  quite  so 
strong  as  before.  Soon  an  uncomfortable  heat  rose  to  his 
face  and  we  saw  his  forehead  entirely  covered  with  perspiration. 
Being  impressed  more  and  more  by  these  phenomena,  the 
subject  was  very  willing  to  lend  himself  to  any  new  experiment 
which  Mesmer  wished  to  make  upon  him.  He  presented  the 
index  finger  and  thumb  of  each  hand,  the  other  fingers  remain- 
ing folded  in  his  palm ;  and  Mesmer  presented  to  him  the  same 
fingers,  very  close  to  his  own  but  without  touching  them.     The 


l64    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

subject  first  began  to  feel  a  slight  vibration,  a  tickling  sensation, 
in  the  palms  of  his  hands.  This  tickling  was  followed  by  a 
numbness.  Heat  succeeded  immediately,  and  his  hands  were 
covered  with  perspiration  —  not,  however,  as  abundant  as  that 
which  we  had  seen  on  his  forehead,  and  also  less  than  that  which 
had  been  on  his  shoulders. 

Such  are  the  effects  which  I  myself  have  witnessed,  without 
having  perceived  or  having  been  able  to  suspect  any  mechanical 
cause  which  had  produced  them. 

His  incredulity  being  wholly  vanquished  by  these  phenomena, 
and  having  recovered  from  the  surprise  which  they  had  caused 
him,  the  new  convert  went  the  following  morning  to  Dr.  Mes- 
mer.  There  he  experienced  again  the  same  sensations.  He 
assures  me  of  this  in  a  letter  dated  December  2,  in  which  he  says : 

My  pain  in  the  shoulder  increased  considerably  until 
Mesmer  directed  upon  me  the  action  of  his  /  know  not 
what.  I  have  felt  a  heat  comparable  to  that  of  steam  from 
boiling  water;  prompt  and  rapid  twitchings  in  the  mem- 
bers ;  slight  spasms  and  shivering  in  the  fingers.  When  he 
withdrew  his  hand,  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  very  cold  air 
blew  into  mine.  I  have  repeated  this  experiment  more 
than  twenty  times. 

The  author  of  this  account  concludes  with  these  very 
sensible  words : 

In  the  meantime  do  not  let  us  be  so  skeptical  as  to  reject 
the  phenomena  that  we  cannot  undersand,  but  let  us  be  more 
circumspect  about  the  cause  of  a  multitude  of  effects,  the  appar- 
ent marvels  of  which  are  due  wholly  to  our  ignorance. 

We  ourselves  have  observed,  more  than  once,  facts 
similar  to  those  just  related.  A  certain  number  of 
them  are  described  in  Our  Hidden  Forces,     More  re- 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  165 

cently  still,  we  have  been  able  to  ascertain  that  the  re- 
ceptivity of  subjects,  in  respect  to  the  biactinic  action, 
is  not  necessarily  proportioned  to  their  suggestibility  or 
their  hypnotic  sensibility. 

Take,  for  example,  the  case  of  a  boy  of  sixteen,  who 
was  employed  in  a  factory.  He  had  never  seen  any 
experiments  of  the  kind,  and  was  almost  completely 
ignorant  of  matters  of  this  nature.  He  consented,  out 
of  mere  curiosity,  to  lend  himself  to  an  experiment  of 
hypnotization.  He  reacted  quickly  and  with  much 
force  to  the  process  of  Moutin,  and  to  that  test  which 
we  have  indicated  as  a  variation  of  Moutin's  method.® 
Submitted  to  the  action  of  the  passes  and  the  gaze,  he 
fell  into  a  state  of  torpor,  or,  rather,  of  manifest  pas- 
sivity. But  this  state  was  evidently  very  superficial, 
for  he  suddenly  opened  his  eyes  and  returned  to  his 
ordinary  state.  His  cutaneous  sensibility  remained 
intact;  although  he  was  suggested  that  he  felt  nothing, 
he  continued  to  feel  all  contacts.  Suggestions  of  heat 
and  cold,  even  though  repeated  with  insistence,  pro- 
duced no  effect.  In  short,  he  appeared  very  little  sug- 
gestible. Hypnotism  (the  process  of  Braid)  gave  no 
appreciable  result.  There  was  no  amnesia  on  waking 
—  if  it  can  be  called  waking,  from  a  state  which  had 
no  resemblance  to  sleep. 

However,  certain  signs  made  me  suspect  that  the  sub- 
ject was  particularly  sensible  to  biactinic  action. 
Therefore,  in  a  second  seance,  after  he  was  placed  in  a 
state  of  torpor,  with  his  eyes  closed,  I  tried  to  verify 
my  conjecture.  Seated  in  front  of  the  subject,  and 
talking  all  the  while  to  a  friend  who  accompanied  me, 

»Page  88. 


i66     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

I  slid  my  right  foot  slowly  over  the  carpet,  the  toe 
pointing  toward  the  subject's  left  foot.  I  noticed  im- 
mediately a  slight  movement,  a  sort  of  tremor,  in  his 
foot.  Again  I  slid  my  right  foot,  very  slowly  and 
without  noise;  this  time  th'e  subject's  foot  glided  visibly 
toward  mine.  Then  the  gliding  —  which  responded 
each  time  to  that  of  my  foot  —  became  so  marked  that 
my  friend's  attention  was  attracted  to  it.  Until  then 
he  had  noticed  nothing,  but  now  he  regarded  with  sur- 
prise this  foot  which  was  advanced  by  jerks  over  the 
carpet  and  ended  by  leaving  the  ground  and  raising 
itself  in  the  air,  as  if  it  were  linked  to  mine  —  which 
was  raised  at  the  same  time  —  by  an  invisible  thread. 

When  the  subject  was  questioned,  he  declared  that 
he  had  felt  in  his  foot  a  sort  of  attraction  which  had 
forced  him  to  move  it. 

I  then  placed  my  right  hand  at  eight  or  ten  centi- 
meters from  his  left  hand  while  it  lay,  relaxed  and  mo- 
tionless, over  the  arm  of  the  chair.  After  a  few  sec- 
onds of  presentation  I  drew  my  hand  slowly  away  from 
his,  repeating  this  movement  several  times.  I  ob- 
served, first,  a  slight  tremor  of  the  subject's  hand,  which 
gradually  left  its  original  position,  reproducing  each 
time  the  movements  of  my  hand.  I  then  made  — 
always  at  a  distance  —  the  reverse  movements ;  his 
hand  returned  slowly  to  its  former  position  over  the 
arm  of  the  chair.  Quickly  I  transferred  my  action 
from  the  left  side  to  the  right;  the  subject's  right  hand 
responded  to  the  silent  appeals  of  my  hand  exactly 
as  his  left  hand  had  done. 

In  brief,  this  subject,  suggestible  and  hypnotizable  to 
a  very  small  degree  only,  behaved  as  if  his  nervous  sys- 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  167 

tern  were,  so  far  as  voluntary  movements  are  con- 
cerned, in  communication  with  my  own. 

It  is  evident  that  all  these  experiments  should  be 
repeated  in  conditions  which  would  permit  of  their 
being  rendered  more  precise  and  more  varied.  But 
they  do  not  depend  always  upon  the  desire  of  the  experi- 
menter, for  he  cannot  dispose  of  persons  as  he  may 
dispose  of  material  objects  in  experiments  in  physics 
or  chemistry,  or  even  of  animals  in  experiments  in 
physiology. 

It  would  be  interesting,  if  the  occasion  should  present 
itself,  to  find  if  a  subject  sensitive  to  the  biactinic  action 
of  a  certain  operator  is  equally  sensitive  to  that  of  all 
other  individuals ;  to  ascertain  the  circumstances  which 
increase  or  diminish  the  efficacy  of  this  action;  to  learn 
if  it  can  be  exercised  through  intermediaries,  etc. 

All  these  researches  have  been  undertaken  by  us;  and 
if  we  have  not  been  able  to  continue  them,  as  we  should 
have  wished  to  do,  others  undoubtedly  will  succeed, 
when  scientists  become  thoroughly  convinced  that  it  is 
a  question  of  real  facts,  submitted,  as  all  other  facts  of 
nature  are,  to  general  and  constant  laws,  and  entirely 
amenable  to  the  experimental  method. 

Up  to  the  present  time,  however,  those  among  our 
contemporaries  who  have  had  the  courage  to  pursue 
this  study  have  been  only  too  rare.  Outside  of  the 
school  of  the  early  mesmerists  —  who,  however,  ignore 
or  deny  the  disturbing  and  simulating  Intervention  of 
suggestion  in  the  greater  part  of  the  parapsychic  phe- 
nomena —  we  see  few  among  the  more  recent  observ- 
ers, beyond  Dr.  Barety,  who  submitted  biactinism  to  a 
systematic  investigation,  the  results  of  which  were  pub- 


i68  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

lished  by  him  In  1887.  But  even  though  Dr.  Pierre 
Janet,  speaking  of  Dr.  Barety's  book  in  the  Revue 
philosophique  (1888),  commended  it  as  a  useful  work 
in  "  calling  attention  to  important  phenomena  which 
we  have  been  too  disposed  to  neglect,"  no  scientist,  to 
our  knowledge,  has  thought  It  worth  while  to  undertake 
the  experiments,  although  their  control  was  very  easy; 
and  so  these  "  Important  phenomena  '*  have  continued 
to  be  neglected  as  before. 

We  must  make  an  exception,  however,  of  a  Swedish 
scientist,  M.  Sydney  Alrutz,  professor  at  the  University 
of  Epsal,  who  published  (1914)  in  his  reports  of  the 
Sixth  Congress  of  Experimental  Psychology,  of  Got- 
tlngen,  an  interesting  article  entitled  '*  Contribution  to 
the  Dynamism  of  the  Nervous  System,"  In  which  he 
gave  the  results  of  his  personal  researches. 

The  problem  which  he  proposed  to  solve  experi- 
mentally was  the  same  as  that  which  we  announced  at 
the  beginning  of  this  chapter : 

Does  the  human  organism  really  possess  the  prop- 
erty of  radiating  a  magnetic  influence  capable  of  acting 
at  a  distance  upon  another  human  organism? 

"  It  is  a  question,  above  all  else,  of  knowing,"  said 
Professor  Alrutz,  "  If  one  nervous  system  can  exert 
upon  another  nervous  system  a  direct  influence ;  and  if 
nervous  systems  are  such  that,  even  If  isolated  from 
each  other,  there  can  be  established  between  them,  in 
special  conditions,  any  action  at  a  distance." 

To  solve  this  problem.  Professor  Alrutz  employed 
the  following  method  —  which,  it  will  be  noticed,  Is 
analogous  to  that  we  have  employed. ^^ 

!•>  Described  in  Our  Hidden  Forces,  Chapter  VI,  "  New  Experimental 
Method  in  Hypnology." 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  169 

The  operator  assures  himself  that  It  Is  Impossible 
for  the  subject,  placed  In  a  light  state  of  hypnosis,  either 
to  see  anything  or  to  know  what  happens  about  him. 
For  this  purpose  a  heavy  cloth  Is  thrown  over  the  sub- 
ject's head,  and  If  judged  necessary  his  ears  are 
stopped  up.  It  Is  understood,  of  course,  that  no  verbal 
suggestion  Is  made.  There  Is  then  placed  above  the 
subject's  bare  hand  and  forearm  a  glass  plate  of  about 
five  millimeters  thickness,  supported  a  few  Inches  above 
the  skin.  The  experimenter  now  makes  with  his  right 
hand,  as  silently  as  possible,  slow  and  regular  passes 
(about  twenty  passes  a  minute)  a  short  distance  above 
the  glass  plate  and  without  contact.  These  "  descend- 
ing "  passes  are  In  a  centrifugal  direction  —  that  Is  to 
say,  they  go  from  the  articulation  of  the  subject's  elbow 
to  the  tips  of  his  fingers. 

In  this  experiment  the  following  phenomena  are  ob- 
served : 

The  cutaneous  sensibility  Is  completely  abollshed,^^ 
although  prior  to  this  experiment  —  the  subject  being, 
however,  In  a  state  of  hypnosis  —  his  sensitiveness  was 
a  little  above  normal  (hyperalgesia  and  light  hyperes- 
thesia). As  If  by  a  sort  of  compensation,  the  sensi- 
tiveness is  distinctly  augmented  upon  the  parts  corre- 
sponding to  that  experimented  upon. 

The  same  effects  are  produced  if  the  plate  of  glass  be 
replaced  by  a  plate  of  zinc,  of  copper,  of  lead,  and  of 
other  metals,  or  by  an  alloy  such  as  brass.  On  the 
contrary,  with  a  sheet  of  cardboard,  or  a  piece  of  wool, 
these  substances  have  the  effect  of  an  Isolator,  the  plate 
acting  more  or  less  as  a  protector. 

11  The  author  omits,  unfortunately,  to  say  for  how  long  a  time. 


170     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

If,  now,  above  the  skin  rendered  insensible  by  de- 
scending passes,  ascending  passes  be  made  —  that  is,  in 
the  centripetal  direction  —  whether  with  a  glass  or 
metal  plate,  the  sensibility  is  reestablished,  and  its  re- 
turn is  accompanied  by  an  uncomfortable  sensation :  the 
subject  rubs  the  spot  with  his  other  hand  and  declares, 
spontaneously  or  upon  interrogation,  that  "  it  pricks,** 
and  also,  although  later,  that  it  feels  hot  or  cold. 

These  sensations  correspond  often  to  the  excitations 
made  during  the  preceding  period  of  analgesia.  For 
example,  if  during  this  period  the  anterior  part  of  the 
phalanges  be  pricked  with  a  needle,  the  subject  does  not 
feel  the  pricking  sensation  until  later  when  his  sensi- 
bility is  restored. 

In  a  general  way,  the  ascending  passes  have  a  posi- 
tive action  upon  the  sensibility:  they  reestablish  the  sen- 
sibility when  this  has  been  abolished  by  a  previous  ac- 
tion, or  augment  it  to  the  point  of  hyperesthesia  when 
it  was  originally  normal.  The  descending  passes,  on 
the  contrary,  have  a  negative  action:  they  abolish  the 
sensibility  or  bring  it  back  to  the  normal  state  when  it 
has  been  rendered  hyperesthetic  by  a  previous  action. 

Certain  substances,  such  as  glass  and  different 
metals,  are  good  conductors  of  the  influence  emanating 
from  the  passes;  certain  others,  such  as  cardboard, 
wool,  etc.,  intercept  its  passage. 

The  presentation  of  the  hand,  motionless,  above  a 
part  of  the  subject's  body,  always  through  a  glass  plate, 
produces,  according  to  Professor  Alrutz,  different 
effects,  depending  upon  whether  the  subject  is  in  a 
state  of  superficial  or  deep  hypnosis. 

In  superficial  hypnosis,  at  the  end  of  a  few  seconds 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  171 

the  subject  will  feel  heat,  pricking,  he  will  "  feel  electri- 
fied " ;  and  if  it  is  above  the  closed  hand  that  the  oper- 
ator is  holding  his  extended  hand,  the  subject  stretches 
out  his  fingers,  or  at  least  shows  strong  tendency  to 
do  so. 

In  deep  hypnosis,  the  sensibility  which  was  abolished 
is  awakened  in  the  place  aimed  at,  and  reacts  to  differ- 
ent cutaneous  excitations;  but  in  this  place  only,  es- 
pecially if  the  time  of  the  presentation  be  exactly 
measured. 

Exploration  in  motricity  gives  results  analogous  to 
those  of  researches  in  sensibility. 

If  the  operator  directs  his  finger,  at  a  few  centi- 
meters' distance,  toward  the  motor  points  —  for  ex- 
ample, toward  the  palmar  region  of  the  forearm  —  it 
determines  an  excitation  of  these  points  which  cause 
a  flection  in  the  articulation  of  the  phalanges,  precisely 
as  if  they  had  been  faintly  excited  by  electric  currents 
of  induction. 

Finally,  Professor  Alrutz  notes  that  other  people 
than  the  hypnotlzer  can  provoke  the  same  effects  if 
operating  with  the  same  subject,  at  least  during  the 
continuance  of  the  hypnotic  state;  for  "  about  twenty 
persons,  psychologists,  physiologists,  physicians,  physi- 
cists, etc.,  who  have  reproduced  these  experiments  have 
completely  succeeded  and  have  obtained  the  same  re- 
sults." 

I  myself.  In  my  personal  experiments,  have  observed 
that  other  operators  can  Influence  my  subjects  in  vari- 
ous degrees;  but  I  have  observed  also  that  certain 
operators  did  not  possess  this  power,  and  succeeded  In 
exerting  it  only  by  conduction:  that  is  to  say,  only  after 


172     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

being  put  in  contact  with  myself.  It  seems  that  this 
fact  has  escaped  the  Swedish  experimenter,  perhaps 
because  his  attention  has  not  been  attracted  in  this 
direction. 

Besides,  the  details  of  the  effects  produced  have  not, 
perhaps,  the  importance  that  the  author  attributes  to 
them;  for,  really,  these  effects  vary  to  a  great  extent 
with  the  individuahty  or  the  state  of  the  operator.  It 
is  necessary,  therefore,  to  avoid  the  postulation  into  so 
many  laws  of  the  particularities  observed  in  these  di- 
verse experiments.  It  is  only  after  long  and  patient 
researches  that  it  will  be  possible  to  generalize  with  any 
certainty. 

But  what  IS  really  important  —  since  on  this  point 
all  the  results  obtained  by  the  different  observers  and 
experimenters  coincide  —  is  the  fact  that  a  human  or- 
ganism radiated  upon  another  organism,  at  a  distance, 
and  without  the  possible  intervention  of  suggestion,  an 
influence  susceptible  of  provoking  in  this  organism  sen- 
sitive and  motor  reactions  —  and  perhaps  those  of 
some  other  order,  the  modalities  and  the  conditions  of 
which  remain  to  be  determined  by  a  series  of  later 
studies. 

And  this  fact  itself  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
reality  of  biactinism,  or  animal  magnetism. 

V 

It  would,  however,  be  premature  to  consider  this 
fact  as  definitely  established  for  science,  so  long  as  the 
experiments  which  prove  it  have  not  been  verified  and 
repeated  by  a  very  great  number  of  researches.  Until 
then  biactinism  will  remain,  not  a  fact,  but  an  hypothe- 


AN  UNKNOWN  FORCE  173 

SIS,  partaking  of  the  fate  of  a  great  many  scientific 
truths,  which,  before  being  universally  accepted  as  such, 
were  first  recognized  by  a  small  number  of  men  only, 
having  undergone  a  somewhat  prolonged  period  of 
negation  and  doubt. 

Yet  a  philosopher  would  undoubtedly  have  little 
trouble  in  demonstrating  to  us  that  in  what  most  lay- 
men as  well  as  scientists  call  a  fact  there  enters  an  in- 
evitable part  of  interpretation  and  hypothesis.  It  is  a 
fact,  it  will  be  said,  that  the  earth  turns  round  the  sun, 
that  heat  expands  material  bodies,  that  the  magnet 
attracts  iron,  etc.  But  if  each  of  these  facts  be  an- 
alyzed, it  will  be  seen  that  it  may  be  resolved  into  two 
very  different  kinds  of  elements:  (i)  phenomena  di- 
rectly perceived  by  our  senses,  or,  to  go  deeper,  sensa- 
tions of  which  we  are  directly  conscious;  (2)  concep- 
tions of  our  mind,  conceptions  of  time,  of  space,  of 
number,  and  especially  of  causality,  by  the  aid  of  which 
we  make  the  synthesis  of  these  phenomena  and  give 
an  objective  signification  and  value  to  our  sensations. 

Strictly  speaking,  only  our  sensations  are  facts;  all 
the  rest  are  interpretations,  in  which  we  believe  because 
they  have  succeeded  for  us;  having  been  more  or  less 
conjectural  at  the  beginning,  they  have  ended  by  becom- 
ing certainties. 

The  distinction  between  the  fact  and  the  hypothesis 
has,  then,  theoretically,  nothing  absolute,  and  it  is  often 
by  an  indefinite  series  of  imperceptible  transitions  that 
the  former  hypothesis  is  finally  transformed  into  a  fact. 

In  any  case,  the  partizans  of  biactinism  may  tem- 
porarily make  the  following  conclusions : 

There  exist  a  great  number  of  facts  in  which  a 


174     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

human  organism  appears  to  exert  upon  another  or- 
ganism an  influence  where  suggestion  is  certainly  ex- 
cluded and  which  strongly  resembles  a  radiation  at  a 
distance.  These  facts  would  become  still  more  numer- 
ous if  researchers  would  take  the  trouble  to  experiment. 
It  is  these  facts  of  apparent  biactinism  which  science 
must  not  reject  a  priori  with  derision,  but  should  sub- 
mit to  an  impartial  and  methodical  investigation. 

In  this  investigation  the  hypothesis  of  "  vital  or 
nervous  radiation  "  will  certainly  play  a  considerable 
part,  as  it  is  Impossible  to  experiment  usefully  without 
the  aid  of  a  directing  hypothesis ;  but  we  do  not  claim 
any  privilege  for  it,  and  all  other  hypotheses  can  and 
must  be  In  concurrence  with  it.  Of  these  adverse  hy- 
potheses, the  one  that  Is  most  in  favor  at  the  present 
time  is  that  of  mental  suggestion,  or  telepathy,  which 
would  better  be  named  communication  of  thought. 

The  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research  has  sys- 
tematically opposed  to  this  the  hypothesis  of  animal 

magnetism,  of  which  it  is,  however,  only  a  particular 
form.^2 

But  It  is  very  necessary  to  repeat  that  the  compara- 
tive discussion  of  the  different  hypotheses  must  be  ex- 
perimental and  not  simply  dialectic.  In  other  words, 
It  will  be  a  question  of  combining  experiments  In  such 
way  that  all  telepathic  suggestion  will  be  rigorously  ex- 
cluded, leaving  place  for  biactlnic  action  solely. 

We  shall  return  to  this  question  In  the  following 
chapter,  regarding  the  rapports  of  the  communication 
of  thought,  or  "  diapsychism,"  with  animal  magnetism. 

12  See  Our  Hidden  Forces,  Chapter  X,  "  The  Relation  of  Telepathy 
to  Human  Magnetism." 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   COMMUNICATION   OF   THOUGHT,   OR 
"  DIAPSYCHISM  " 


When  we  come  to  designate  the  phenomenon  to  be 
studied  in  this  chapter,  It  Is  difficult  to  find  a  word  that 
is  free  from  all  objection.  For  want  of  a  better  term, 
we  shall  for  the  moment  employ  the  expression,  "  com- 
munication of  thought."  It  is  called  also,  "  transmis- 
sion of  thought,"  "  thought-transference,"  "  thought- 
reading,"  "  divination  or  penetration  of  thought." 
But  the  term  which  the  majority  of  our  contemporaries 
seem  to  favor  Is  "  mental  suggestion  " —  even  though 
this  has  the  disadvantage  of  implying  an  Interpretation 
preconceived,  and  consequently  hypothetical,  of  the 
phenomenon,  thus  comparing  It  without  proof  to  or- 
dinary suggestion. 

At  the  risk  of  Incurring  the  reproaches  of  all  those 
who  do  not  approve  of  neologisms,  I  propose  to  coin  a 
word  free  from  all  connection  with  previous  Ideas :  such 
as  the  word  diapsychism,  which  means,  literally,  "  the 
passage  from  soul  to  soul,"  and  so  will  suffice  to  desig- 
nate the  transmission  of  a  psychological  state  from  one 
consciousness  to  another. 

The  Marquis  de  Puysegur  was  one  of  the  first  to  ob- 
serve a  phenomenon  of  this  nature.  Having  for  the 
first  time  provoked  artificial  somnambulism  In  his  sub- 

175 


176    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

ject,  Victor  Vielet,  he  noticed  that  in  that  state  the 
subject  appeared  to  divine  his  thoughts  even  though 
unexpressed.  *'  I  do  not  have  to  speak,"  he  wrote;  "  I 
think  near  him;  he  understands  and  answers."  From 
that  time  during  all  the  period  that  followed,  and  which 
may  be  called  the  period  of  the  magnetizers  or  of  ani- 
mal magnetism,  allusions  and  descriptions  in  support 
of  this  fact  are  encountered  very  frequently. 

In  a  book  too  little  known.  Letters  to  a  Candid  In- 
quirer on  Animal  Magnetism j  William  Gregory  speaks 
explicitly  of  *'  thought-reading "  and  "  sympathetic 
clairvoyance,"  and  enumerates  the  different  forms,  of 
which  he  gives  many  interesting  examples.  He  claims 
that  he  can  sometimes  produce  the  phenomenon  spon- 
taneously, as  in  the  case  of  the  Swiss  novelist,  Zschokke, 
"  who  possessed  at  moments,  spontaneously,  the  power 
to  read  in  the  minds  of  others  the  whole  of  their  past 
history." 

Diapsychism  is  an  essentially  diverse  and  multiform 
phenomenon;  and  in  order  to  gain  a  just  idea  of  it,  it 
is  indispensable  that  it  be  studied  under  all  its  different 
aspects.  Almost  all  those  who  have  studied  it  have 
wrongfully  limited  their  consideration  to  only  one  of 
its  many  forms,  and  have  been  satisfied  in  the  mean- 
time to  give  a  general  theory.  This  is  true,  in  par- 
ticular, of  our  contemporary  savants,  who,  not  being 
able  to  consider  diapsychism  as  a  series  of  experiments 
systematically  and  exclusively  oriented  by  the  hypothesis 
of  suggestion,  obstinately  refuse  to  see  in  it  more  than 
that  one  particular  form  of  suggestion  called  "  mental 
suggestion." 

In  reality,  mental  suggestion  is  but  a  particular  form 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     177 

of  a  much  more  general  phenomenon  —  diapsychism. 
Cuvler,  in  his  Leqons  d'anatomie,  defined  animal  mag- 
netism as  *'  any  communication  whatsoever  established 
between  two  nervous  systems/'  We  might  slightly 
modify  this  to  define  diapsychism :  **  Any  communica- 
tion whatsoever  established  between  two  brains  J* 

II 

Perhaps  the  form  of  Intercerebral  communication 
which  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  simple  and  the  most 
complex  is  that  of  sensorial  sympathy.  This,  under 
certain  conditions  yet  unknown,  reflects  upon  the  sub- 
ject in  one  of  several  ways  the  sensations  experienced 
by  the  hypnotizer. 

Dr.  Pierre  Janet  says : 

Madame  B.  seems  to  feel  the  majority  of  sensations  felt  by 
the  person  who  put  her  to  sleep.  She  believed  she  herself  was 
drinking  and  her  throat  went  through  the  operation  of  swal- 
lowing when  the  operator  drank.  She  always  recognized  ex- 
actly the  substance  I  put  in  my  mouth,  and  distinguished 
perfectly  if  I  tasted  salt  or  sugar. 

The  phenomenon  happened  just  the  same  if  I  was  in  another 
room.  If,  while  I  was  in  the  other  room,  I  pinched  my  arm 
or  leg,  she  screamed  and  believed  indignantly  that  the  pinch  was 
inflicted  upon  her  own  arm  or  leg. 

My  brother,  who  assisted  at  these  experiments  and  who 
exerted  a  singular  influence  over  her,  even  so  much  that  she 
thought  he  was  I,  tried  something  still  more  curious.  While 
Madam  B.  was  in  that  phase  of  lethargic  somnambulism  where 
she  was  susceptible  to  mental  suggestion,  he  went  into  another 
room  and  burnt  his  arm.  Madame  B.  screamed  frightfully. 
She  held  her  right  arm  just  above  the  wrist,  and  complained 
of  suffering  intensely.     I  did  not  know  at  all  the  place  where 


178  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

my  brother  meant  to  burn  himself;  but  it  was  just  there,  above 
the  wrist. 

These  identical  facts  already  had  been  observed  by 
the  early  mesmerists.  W.  Gregory,  in  his  Letters  on 
Animal  Magnetism  shows  that  ^'  communication  of  the 
sensations  "  can  be  produced  by  the  senses  of  taste, 
smell,  and  touch.     He  says : 

If  the  operator,  or  another  person  en  rapport  with  the  subject, 
puts  into  his  mouth  any  food  or  drink  whatsoever,  the  subject  — 
in  most  cases  —  instantly  goes  through  the  pantomime  of  eating 
or  drinking  whatever  the  substance  may  be.  If  he  is  ques- 
tioned he  declares  that  he  is  eating  bread,  or  an  orange,  or 
candy,  or  that  he  is  drinking  water,  or  wine,  or  milk,  or  beer, 
or  syrup,  or  lemonade,  or  an  infusion  of  absynthe,  or  eau-de-vie 
—  according  to  the  substance  which  the  operator  at  that  mo- 
ment is  tasting.  When  the  thing  tasted  is  bitter  or  disagree- 
able, the  physiognomy  of  the  subject  shows  it  immediately. 
His  eyes  are  closed,  and  as  the  mesmerist  is  behind  him,  he 
cannot  see  what  is  being  tasted.  I  have  seen  and  verified  this 
fact  in  cases  so  numerous  that  I  regard  it  as  solidly  es- 
tablished. .  .  . 

If  a  person  en  rapport  with  the  subject  smells  a  rose,  the 
subject  at  once  begins  to  inhale  the  delicious  perfume;  if  he 
smells  assafoetida,  the  subject  expresses  displeasure.  .  .  . 

Whoever  touches  the  person  en  rapport  with  the  subject,  is 
felt  by  the  subject  at  exactly  the  same  place.  If  the  operator 
shakes  the  hand  of  any  one,  the  subject  instantly  clasps  an 
imaginary  hand.  If  a  pin-prick  is  inflicted  upon  the  back  of 
the  mesmerist's  hand,  the  subject  withdraws  his  hand  hastily, 
rubs  the  place,  and  complains  vigorously  of  the  pain  he  feels. 

Permit  me  to  say  that  I  myself  have  many  times 
observed,  under  absolutely  satisfactory  conditions  of 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     179 

control,  that  singular  sympathy  of  the  subject  for  the 
sensations  of  his  hypnotizer,  principally  the  tactile  sen- 
sations, in  the  course  of  experiments  made  with  my 
subject,  Ludovig  S.,  whether  in  a  hypnotic  condition  or 
in  the  waking  state. 

It  does  not  seem  that  this  sympathy  extends  to  the 
senses  of  sight  and  hearing.  At  least,  we  are  not 
aware  of  the  existence  of  any  case  thus  far. 

It  is  well  known  that  certain  psychologists  admit, 
independently  of  the  five  senses  —  which  may  be  called 
the  exterior  senses  —  the  existence  of  a  sixth  sense,  the 
interior  sense,  or  vital  sense,  which  informs  us  of  the 
state  of  our  organism.  It  is  by  this  sense,  they  say, 
that  we  are  conscious  of  our  body  and  are  able  to  locate 
our  various  sensations;  it  is  by  this  sense  that  we  are 
more  or  less  conscious  of  the  action  of  our  lungs,  the 
circulation  of  our  blood,  the  beating  of  our  heart,  the 
digestion  in  our  stomach,  etc.  The  sensations  of  hun- 
ger and  thirst,  the  muscular  sensations,  those  associated 
with  the  genital  sense,  those  which  accompany  differ- 
ent maladies,  and  still  many  others  belong  to  this  sixth 
sense.  One  can  see  how  extensive  are  its  domains. 
But  it  matters  little  whether  it  be  considered  a  special 
sense  or  a  simple  dependence  of  touch,  as  an  inner 
touch;  for  these  questions  of  denomination  and  classi- 
fication are  of  small  importance.  It  is  sufficient  that 
the  existence  of  this  special  group  of  sensations  be 
recognized. 

But  now  we  ask  whether  the  sensations  of  this  group 
admit  also  of  diapsychism  —  that  is  to  say,  their  com- 
munication from  one  consciousness  to  another.  One 
cannot  doubt  the  answer. 


i8o  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

*'  Sympathy,"  says  Gregory,  who  means  by  that  word 
sensorial  diapsychism,  "  extends  often  to  the  corporal 
state  of  the  operator  or  of  another  person  en  rapport 
with  the  subject.  The  subject  will  feel  and  describe 
all  pain  or  other  ill  experienced  by  the  operator;  and 
in  some  cases  he  will  even  feel  or  perceive  intuitively 
a  diseased  state  of  certain  organs  in  the  operator's  body 
—  such  as  a  headache,  or  a  pain  in  his  side,  or  difficult 
breathing;  he  will  assert  that  the  brain,  or  the  kidneys, 
or  the  liver,  or  the  stomach,  or  the  heart,  is  deranged 
in  a  certain  way  —  and  only  too  often  he  is  right." 

Gregory  remarks  that  he  is  not  speaking  here  of  a 
view  of  the  state  of  these  organs,  which  is  a  phenom- 
enon of  another  order  —  clairvoyance  —  but  of  an  in- 
tuitive perception  of  the  state  of  health  or  disease. 

The  facts  of  this  category,  of  which  there  are  many 
examples,  do  not  appear  to  have  been  studied  except 
very  incidentally.  They  should  be  subjected  to  me- 
thodical investigation. 

If  it  be  asked  by  what  mechanism  sensorial  diapsy- 
chism  —  the  communication  of  sensations  —  is  pro- 
duced, it  seems  that  we  must  hesitate  between  two 
different  conceptions  or  interpretations.  Those  who 
see  in  suggestion  the  essential  type  of  all  the  parapsy- 
chic  facts  confuse,  undoubtedly,  the  communication  of 
sensation  with  the  communication  of  thought;  or, 
rather,  it  is  by  the  former  that  they  are  forced  to  ex- 
plain the  latter.  In  appearance,  it  may  be  said,  it  is 
the  sensation  of  the  hypnotizer  which,  by  a  sort  of 
nervous  repercussion,  is  transmitted  directly  to  the 
hypnotized. 

For  this  it  would  be  necessary  that  between  the 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     181 

nervous  systems  of  the  operator  and  the  subject  there 
be  a  communication  the  possibility  of  which  seems  to 
us,  in  the  actual  state  of  our  physiological  knowledge, 
very  difficult  to  admit.  The  phenomenon  is  in  reality 
much  more  complex.     This  is  how  it  may  be  analyzed : 

First  stage:  The  nervous  system  of  the  hypnotizer, 
under  the  influence  of  an  exterior  excitation,  sends  to 
his  brain  a  sensation  which  is  immediately  transformed 
into  an  idea. 

Second  stage:  That  idea  is  transmitted  by  mental 
suggestion  to  the  brain  of  the  hypnotized. 

Third  stage:  The  idea  thus  suggested  (to  the  un- 
conscious or  subconscious  state)  influences  the  nervous 
system  of  the  hypnotized,  which  puts  itself  in  the  state 
of  reproducing  the  first  sensation. 

All  happens  as  if  the  subject,  divining  the  Impres- 
sions and  the  thoughts  which  took  place  in  the  mind 
of  the  operator,  said:  "  In  that  moment  my  hypno- 
tizer experienced  a  sensation  of  pricking,  of  burning, 
etc. ;  then  suggested  to  me,  or  I  suggested  to  myself,  to 
experience  an  identical  sensation." 

From  that  conception  sensorial  diapsychism  goes 
back  to  the  basis  of  intellectual  diapsychism:  the  com- 
munication of  sensations  is  resolved  into  the  communica- 
tion of  ideas.  There  remains  then  only  the  explana- 
tion of  this  communication  between  two  brains ;  at  least, 
if  this  be  not  admitted  as  a  fact,  even  though  inexplic- 
able. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  partizans  of  biactin- 
ism,  or  animal  magnetism,  will  suggest  an  entirely 
different  interpretation.  According  to  them,  the  first 
and  general  fact  is  the  reciprocal  communication  of 


i82  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

the  nervous  systems;  the  reciprocal  communication  of 
the  brains  being  but  a  secondary  fact,  derived  from 
the  first.  The  subject  is  directly  sensible  to  all  the 
influences  which  come  to  him,  not  only  from  the  brain 
but  from  all  parts  of  the  nervous  system  of  the  oper- 
ator; and  the  transmission  of  the  sensations  is  a  phe- 
nomenon as  direct  as  the  transmission  of  the  thoughts. 
It  is  then  futile  to  suppose  a  mechanism  as  complicated 
as  that  of  mental  suggestion:  in  the  subject  as  well  as 
in  the  operator  the  brain  plays  but  a  secondary  part:  It 
receives,  It  does  not  act;  the  real  actor  Is  the  nervous 
system,  which,  in  both  the  operator  and  the  subject, 
carries  to  the  brain  the  necessary  excitation. 

A  schematic  resume  of  the  difference  between  the  two 
conceptions  would  appear  to  be  as  follows : 

The  first  is  a  centrifugal  phenomenon,  since  the 
Initial  cause  of  the  sensation  sympathetically  felt  by  the 
subject  starts  from  the  brain  of  the  operator,  to  be  then 
carried  through  the  brain  of  the  subject  to  his  nervous 
system. 

The  second  Is  a  centripetal  phenomenon,  since.  In 
both  the  operator  and  the  subject,  the  point  of  de- 
parture of  the  sensation  Is  in  the  nervous  system  and 
its  point  of  arrival  In  the  brain. 

Which  of  these  two  conceptions  Is  closer  to  reality? 

This  Is  Impossible  to  determine  by  analyses  and  rea 
sonings  made  In  the  abstract.  It  would  be  necessary 
In  solving  the  problem,  to  institute  experiments  of  a  pre 
else  and  delicate  nature:  real  laboratory  experiments 
which,  owing  to  the  actual  state  of  psychical  researches 
are  practically  unrealizable  because  of  their  lack  of 
organization.     We  shall  return  to  this  problem  later. 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     183 

Can  there  exist  also  a  communication  of  the  senti- 
ments, or  of  the  emotions? 

W.  Gregory  says :  "  There  is  also,  but  perhaps  in 
a  less  degree  than  that  of  the  senses,  a  community  of 
emotions.  In  cases  of  this  kind,  all  mental  emotion 
experienced  by  the  operator,  or  by  other  persons  en 
rapport  with  the  subject,  is  also  experienced  by  him. 
I  have  not  yet  examined  this  phenomenon  as  minutely 
or  as  completely  as  the  others,  because  of  the  difficulty 
of  provoking  at  will  a  strong  and  decided  emotion. 
In  this  case  the  observations  are  ordinarily  accidental. 
Thus  I  have  seen  some  subjects  smile  and  laugh  when 
they  reached  the  magnetic  state;  and  I  have  seen  also 
—  what  very  often  has  been  described  by  others  — 
subjects  painfully  affected  by  the  nervousness  or  dis- 
traction of  the  operator.'' 

It  is  also  to  this  cause  that  Gregory  attributes  the 
accidental  phenomena  which  are  sometimes  produced 
in  the  seances  where  "  persons  who  have  no  experience 
or  knowledge  of  animal  magnetism  try,  for  amusement 
or  for  curiosity,  to  produce  magnetic  effects." 

The  principal  objection  against  the  existence  of  an 
emotional  diapsychism  is  that  emotion,  however  slight 
it  may  be,  is  manifested  by  very  easily  perceptible  signs, 
and  the  sympathy  of  the  subject  for  the  operator  would 
naturally  belong  in  the  realm  of  normal  sympathy. 

In  order  to  witness  a  diapsychic  phenomenon  it 
would  be  necessary  that  the  subject  —  either  because  of 
the  removal  of  the  operator  to  another  room  or  be- 
cause of  the  interposition  of  a  screen  —  be  absolutely 
incapable  of  being  informed  as  to  the  emotional  state 
of  the  operator ;  or  the  operator  himself  may  be  capable 


i84     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

of  suppressing  all  exterior  manifestations  of  the  senti- 
ment he  experiences,  or  of  simulating  the  manifesta- 
tions of  a  contrary  sentiment. 

There  can  be  conceived  still  a  third  form  of  diapsy- 
chism,  related  to  the  two  preceding.  This  is  motor 
diapsychism,  and  consists  in  the  communication  of 
movements  from  one  individual  to  another.  I  do  not 
know,  however,  that  this  form  has  been  effectively 
realized  in  the  cases  that  have  been  observed.  Per- 
sonally, I  do  not  know  of  an  example;  at  least,  those  of 
which  I  have  knowledge  appear  very  ambiguous  and 
very  difficult  to  interpret.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  fol- 
lowing experiment,  which  I  have  conducted  more  than 
once,  it  would  be  rash  to  draw  any  definite  conclusions : 

Some  one  places  his  hand  on  the  table,  with  fingers 
outstretched.  The  one  who  wishes  to  influence  it 
stretches  his  hand  in  the  same  way,  facing  the  first  hand 
and  about  three  or  four  centimeters  from  it,  so  that  the 
thumb  is  opposite  the  thumb  of  the  first  hand  and  each 
of  the  fingers  pointing  at  the  other  fingers.  After  a 
few  minutes  the  operator  slowly  raises  a  finger  and 
lets  it  drop,  then  raises  it  again  and  drops  it  again.  If 
the  subject  is  a  sensitive,  his  corresponding  finger  will 
rise  gradually  and  will  reproduce  precisely  the  move- 
ments of  the  operator.  However,  as  the  subject,  who 
is  not  blindfolded  and  who  moreover  is  in  the  waking 
state,  sees  all  that  happens,  it  would  seem  that  this  is 
no  more  than  a  phenomenon  of  ordinary  suggestion 
—  suggestion  by  gesture,  which  is  similar  to  sugges- 
tion by  word. 

Is  it  the  same  thing  that  happens  as  In  that  other  ex- 
periment, described  in  the  preceding  chapter,  where  the 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     185 

subject  reproduced,  without  seeing ^  the  movements  of 
the  foot  or  the  hand  of  the  operator  ?  I  have  witnessed 
the  phenomenon  in  very  singular  conditions. 

In  a  drawing-room  filled  with  guests,  while  the  others 
danced  and  amused  themselves,  two  people  were  talk- 
ing together  in  the  doorway.  One  of  the  two  sus- 
pected that  the  other  was  a  subject.  Without  letting 
him  know  his  intentions,  and  while  keeping  up  a  lively 
conversation,  he  placed  the  toe  of  his  foot  directly 
opposite  and  about  four  or  five  centimeters  from  the 
toe  of  his  companion's  foot;  then  he  slid  his  foot  several 
times  over  the  floor,  to  and  fro.  Soon  the  foot  of  the 
other  began  to  slide  also,  at  first  Imperceptibly,  then 
with  a  rapidity  increasing  to  the  point  of  compromising 
the  equilibrium  of  the  man  thus  being  experimented 
upon  without  his  knowledge,  for  he  was  unconscious  of 
what  he  was  doing. 

Must  we  see  there  a  case  of  magnetic  attraction  or 
of  mental  suggestion?  The  answer  remains  uncertain. 
It  would  be  less  certain,  perhaps,  if  the  attraction  had 
been  involuntary  and  unconscious  on  the  part  of  the 
operator  as  well  as  the  subject;  as,  for  example,  if  there 
were  observed  a  motor  communication  of  that  nature 
produced  spontaneously  without  their  knowledge  be- 
tween two  individuals  placed  in  two  rooms  sufficiently 
far  apart.  But  really  such  a  case,  were  it  actually  ob- 
served, would  show  us  that  diapsychism  is  related  in- 
sensibly to  biactinism  and  to  a  degree  where  it  is  im- 
possible to  differentiate  precisely  the  one  from  the 
other. 


i86    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

III 

The  most  frequent  form  of  diapsychism  —  that 
which  is  generally  studied  and  referred  to  —  is  what 
we  may  call  intellectual  diapsychism. 

In  intellectual  diapsychism  it  is  ideas,  or  thoughts, 
which  are  transmitted  from  one  individual  to  another, 
and  not  simply  sensations,  emotions,  or  movements; 
consequently,  the  preponderant  role,  from  the  physio- 
logical point  of  view,  seems  to  belong  not  to  a  given 
nerve,  or  to  the  nervous  system  in  general,  but  to  the 
superior  centers  of  the  brain.  It  is  this  chiefly  that  is 
called  "  mental  suggestion  "  and  "  thought-reading  " ; 
and  under  these  two  names,  and  principally  the  former, 
it  holds  an  important  place  in  the  theories  of  con- 
temporary psychists. 

Let  us  remark,  first  of  all,  that  these  two  denomina- 
tions are  not  absolutely  equivalent;  for  they  represent 
two  ensembles  of  facts  sufficiently  different  to  enable 
us  to  distinguish  them. 

( I )  In  the  communication  of  thought,  or  "  mental 
suggestion,"  the  active  pole,  so  to  speak,  is  in  the  brain 
of  the  hypnotizer  or  magnetizer  —  the  operator,  in  a 
word;  and  the  passive  pole  is  in  that  of  the  subject. 
The  first,  more  or  less  voluntarily,  transmits  to  and  im- 
poses upon  the  second  an  idea.  The  phenomenon  in 
this  case  is  entirely  similar  to  ordinary  suggestion :  the 
sole  apparent  difference  —  which  is  an  important  one 
—  is  that  in  ordinary  suggestion  the  transmission  is 
made  by  normal  and  known  means  of  word  or  gesture, 
whereas  here  it  is  made  in  ways  unknown  and  really 
abnormal. 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     187 

(2)  In  "thought-reading,"  on  the  contrary,  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  operator  were  exclusively  engaged 
in  thinking  on  his  own  account,  without  directing  any 
action  upon  the  subject;  and  that  the  subject  himself,  by 
an  action  sui  generis,  penetrates  the  operator's  con- 
sciousness, divines  its  contents,  and  grasps  his  thoughts. 

Certainly,  cases  of  a  mixed  nature  may  be  encoun- 
tered wherein  the  effects  proceed  from  the  combined 
actions  of  operator  and  subject:  the  former  endeavor- 
ing to  project  his  thought,  while  the  latter  tries  to 
attract  and  receive  it.  More  often  than  not,  however, 
each  one  of  these  two  forms  of  intellectual  diapsychism 
presents  itself  alone  to  the  observation,  and  it  would 
be  well  to  consider  them  separately.  To  the  first  the 
name  mental  suggestion  is  especially  applicable ;  to  the 
second,  thought-reading  or  thought-penetration  would 
appear  to  apply  more  exactly. 

Whereas  the  early  mesmerists  saw  in  this  second 
form  a  sort  of  clairvoyance  which  might  be  called  psy- 
chological  clairvoyance^  in  opposition  to  ordinary 
clairvoyance  although  related  to  one  physical  world,  it 
is  through  the  persistent  and  progressive  study  of  sug- 
gestion that  the  modern  disciples  of  the  Schools  of  the 
Salpetriere  and  Nancy  have  been  led  first  to  suspect 
and  then  to  admit  the  reality  of  the  first  form,  which, 
consequently,  they  invariably  conceive  as  in  the  light 
of  suggestion.  A  proof  of  this  is  found  in  the  follow- 
ing case  reported  by  M.  H.  Beaunis  and  observed  by 
him  with  Dr.  Liebeault : 

The  subject  is  a  young  man,  a  good  somnambulist,  in  good 
health,  somewhat  timid.     He  accompanied  his  cousin  to  the 


i88  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

clinic  of  Dr.  Liebeault,  who  was  then  treating  her  by  hypnotism 
for  certain  nervous  affections. 

Dr.  Liebeault  put  the  subject  to  sleep,  saying  during  the 
comatic  sleep :  "  When  you  wake,  you  will  do  the  things 
which  you  will  be  ordered  mentally  to  do  by  the  persons 
present." 

I  then  wrote  on  a  piece  of  paper  these  words:  *' Kiss  your 
cousin*'  This  paper  I  showed  to  Dr.  Liebeault  and  to  the 
other  persons  present,  telling  them  to  read  it  with  their  eyes 
only,  without  pronouncing  a  single  word  or  making  any  motion 
with  their  lips.  Then  I  added:  "When  he  wakes,  think 
intensely  of  the  act  which  he  must  execute ;  but  don't  speak  and 
don't  make  any  sign  that  may  suggest  the  action  to  him." 

The  subject  was  awakened  then,  and  we  awaited  the  result 
of  the  experiment. 

Very  soon  after  he  woke  we  saw  him  laugh  and  hide  his  face 
in  his  hands;  and  that  continued  for  some  time  without  other 
result. 

I  then  asked  him :     "  What  is  the  matter  ?  " 

"  Nothing." 

"  Of  whom  are  you  thinking?  '* 

"  You  know,"  he  answered. 

"  Then,"  said  I,  "  you  must  do  something  to  the  one  we 
think  of.  If  you  do  not  wish  to  do  it,  at  least  tell  us  of  what 
we  are  thinking." 

"  No." 

Then  I  said  to  him :  **  If  you  do  not  like  to  tell  it  aloud, 
whisper  it  in  my  ear." 

On  going  closer  to  him,  he  whispered  to  me :  "  To  kiss  my 
cousin." 

And  so  our  first  experiment  in  mental  suggestion  was  a 
success. 

The  experiments  reported  by  Dr.  Ochorowicz  were 
of  a  similar  nature : 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     189 

First  Experiment 

The  operator,  seated  about  four  meters  from  the  subject  and 
out  of  his  sight,  pretending  to  take  notes,  the  head  bent  over, 
thinks : 

"  Raise  your  right  hand!  '* 

Nothing  happens  the  first  minute ;  at  the  second,  agitation  in 
the  right  hand;  at  the  third,  the  agitation  increases,  the  brows 
are  puckered,  the  right  hand  is  raised,  then  dropped. 

Second  Experiment 

"  Get  up  and  come  to  me!  " 

First  minute,  agitation  and  puckering  of  brows.  Second 
minute,  the  subject  gets  up  slowly,  with  difficulty,  and  comes, 
the  arms  outstretched. 

Third  Experiment 

"  Get  upy  go  to  the  piano,  take  the  box  of  matches,  bring  me 
one  of  them  lighted,  then  return  to  your  place!** 

The  subject  gets  up  and  approaches  the  operator. 

"Go  back!" 

He  returns  to  his  place. 

"Still  farther  back!" 

He  goes  forward  toward  the  door.  He  stops  and  goes  back 
to  the  middle  of  the  room,  from  where  he  had  started.  He 
goes  to  the  piano. 

"  Lower !     Lower !  " 

His  hand  goes  lower. 

"Take  the  box!" 

He  takes  it. 

"Come  to  me!" 

He  comes. 

"Light  one!" 

He  takes  out  a  match. 

"Light  it!" 


iQo    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

He  lights  it  and  gives  it  to  me. 
"  Return  to  your  place!  " 
He  returns. 

Fourth  Experiment 

*'  Go  to  your  brother  and  kiss  him!  ** 

The  subject  gets  up,  advances  toward  the  experimenter,  then 
toward  his  brother.  He  feels  for  his  brother's  head  but  he  does 
not  touch  it.  He  stops  in  front  of  him,  hesitating;  then  he 
slowly  approaches  and  kisses  him  warmly  on  the  forehead. 

The  Idea  to  transmit  or  suggest  in  these  different 
examples  was  that  of  an  act  relatively  complex  In  spite 
of  Its  apparent  simplicity;  and  that  act,  In  sleep,  con- 
sisted of  a  series  of  movements  and  muscular  efforts. 
It  was,  In  one  way,  a  motor  mental  suggestion.  That 
which  in  England  Is  called  the  "  willing  game  '' —  and 
sometimes  "  cumberlandism,"  from  the  name  of  the 
man  who  was  first  to  conduct  public  exhibitions  of  these 
phenomena  —  Is  based  on  mental  suggestion  of  this 
nature. 

A  subject  or  medium,  with  eyes  bandaged,  executes  a 
series  of  acts  under  the  Influence  of  the  will  of  one  of 
the  assistants,  who  thinks  constantly  and  Intensely  of 
what  the  subject  must  do,  analyzing  in  his  thoughts  the 
different  movements  of  which  the  series  Is  composed. 
It  is  true  that  If  the  experimenter  holds  the  hand  of  the 
medium  he  may  guide  him  unconsciously  In  many  ways, 
and  in  this  case  the  phenomenon  cannot  be  considered 
one  of  a  genuine  communication  of  thought.  But  the 
Interpretation  becomes  more  difficult  when  the  experi- 
ment Is  made  without  any  contact  between  the  operator 
and  the  subject. 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     191 

The  idea  to  suggest  mentally  can  also  be  that  of  a 
state  which  can  be  a  sensation  or  an  emotion.  For  ex- 
ample, it  can  be  suggested  mentally  to  a  subject  that  he 
is  very  warm,  very  cold,  that  he  feels  pain  in  a  certain 
part  of  his  body,  that  he  is  frightened,  that  he  is  going 
to  laugh,  to  cry,  etc.;  but  in  general  the  state  which 
experimenters  most  often  try  to  produce  in  this  way 
by  mental  suggestion  is  sleep  —  meaning  magnetic  or 
hypnotic  sleep. 

The  most  interesting  and  most  demonstrative  ex- 
periments in  this  field  are  those  which  were  made  at 
Le  Havre  in  1885  by  Dr.  Gibert  and  Dr.  Pierre  Janet 
with  the  famous  subject  Leonie.  The  following  de- 
tailed account  of  them  was  presented  by  Dr.  Pierre 
Janet  to  the  Society  of  Psycho-physiology  and  pub- 
lished in  the  Revue  philosophique  (1886)  in  two  suc- 
cessive articles,  the  first  bearing  the  modest  title,  "  Note 
on  Some  Phenomena  of  Somnambulism'';  the  next, 
"  Second  Note  on  Sleep  Provoked  at  a  Distance  and 
Mental  Suggestion  while  in  the  State  of  Somnambu- 
lism." 

Leonie,  or  Madame  B.,  subjected  to  hypnotic  influ- 
ence in  the  ordinary  way,  falls  first  into  a  state  very 
near  to  lethargy:  flaccidity  of  the  members,  which,  if 
raised,  fall  back  with  all  their  weight  and  without  any 
movement;  complete  insensibility  to  all  excitations,  ex- 
cept only  one:  the  person  who  put  her  to  sleep  can, 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  persons,  provoke  at  will  a 
partial  or  entire  contraction  by  placing  his  extended 
hand  a  little  distance  from  the  subject's  body;  the  con- 
traction ceases  when  he  touches  lightly  the  part  affected. 
(This  is  a  characteristic  sign  which  will  serve,  in  case 


192     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

of  necessity,  to  distinguish  the  person  who  put  the  sub- 
ject to  sleep.) 

At  the  end  of  ten  minutes,  sometimes  more,  the 
sleep  seems  to  become  lighter,  and  somnambulism  suc- 
ceeds the  lethargic  state.  The  subject  is  now  very 
sensitive  to  all  impressions :  she  understands  all  that  is 
said  to  her  and  answers  intelligently,  but  she  remains 
more  strongly  en  rapport  with  the  one  who  put  her  to 
sleep  and  who  alone  can  wake  her. 

Then  again  lethargy  replaces  the  somnambulistic 
state.  And  these  two  states  succeed  each  other  thus 
alternately  about  every  fifteen  minutes  as  long  as  the 
sleep  lasts. 

The  process  usually  employed  to  put  Leonie  to  sleep 
was  the  pressure  of  the  hand,  especially  of  the  thumb. 
Nevertheless,  "  Dr.  GIbert,  while  holding  her  hand  one 
day  to  put  her  to  sleep,  being  visibly  distracted  and 
thinking  of  other  things,  failed  to  obtain  the  desired 
results."  Dr.  Pierre  Janet  repeated  this  many  times, 
but  always  with  the  same  result,  for  sleep  was  not 
produced.  Therefore,  "  to  put  Madame  B.  to  sleep 
it  was  necessary  to  concentrate  the  thoughts  strongly 
on  that  one  act;  and  the  more  the  thoughts  of  the 
operator  were  distracted,  the  more  difficult  the  provo- 
cation of  sleep." 

This  influence  of  the  operator's  thoughts  is  so  effi- 
cient that  it  can  replace  all  others. 

*'  We  left  Leonie  sitting  at  the  end  of  the  room," 
says  Dr.  Janet;  "  then,  without  touching  her  and  with- 
out speaking.  Dr.  GIbert,  standing  at  the  other  end, 
concentrated  his  thoughts  on  making  her  go  to  sleep. 
After  three  minutes  the  lethargic  sleep  was  produced." 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     193 

And  the  same  experiment  was  repeated  many  times  by 
Dr.  Janet. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  could  not  the  presence  of  the 
experimenters,  their  attitude,  their  silence,  provoke  in 
the  subject  the  idea  of  sleep  and  consequently  sleep 
itself? 

"  There  were  many  times,"  says  Dr.  Janet,  "  when 
Dr.  Gibert  stood  close  to  Leonie,  in  the  same  medita- 
tive attitude,  in  the  same  silence,  but  without  thinking 
of  sleep ;  and  sleep  was  not  produced.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  soon  as,  without  changing  my  attitude,  I  men- 
tally ordered  sleep,  the  eyes  of  the  subject  became  fixed, 
and  the  lethargy  began  immediately."  Furthermore, 
how  can  one  explain  that  only  that  one  of  the  two  ex- 
perimenters who  has  provoked  the  sleep  can  provoke 
during  the  lethargy  the  characteristic  phenomenon  of 
contraction  ? 

In  the  preceding  experiments  the  operator  was  in 
the  same  room  with  the  subject.     Now,  however: 

Leaving  Dr.  Janet  near  Leonie,  but  without  any  knowledge 
of  his  intention,  Dr.  Gibert  shut  himself  up  in  a  nearby  room, 
at  a  distance  of  six  or  seven  meters,  and  there  he  mentally 
ordered  her  to  sleep.  At  the  end  of  a  few  moments,  Dr.  Janet 
verified  the  fact  that  the  subject's  eyes  were  closed  and  that 
she  had  entered  the  sleeping  state.  He  did  not  have  any  in- 
fluence over  her,  whereas  she  obeyed  readily  and  entirely  Dr. 
Gibert,  who  alone  could  cause  the  contraction  and  who  himself 
had  to  wake  her  —  manifest  proof  that  it  was  he  who  put  her 
to  sleep. 

Another  experiment,  still  more  conclusive  from  the 
standpoint  of  true  suggestion,  is  the  following: 


194     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

Dr.  Janet  suddenly  asked  Dr.  Gibert,  who  was  in  his  study, 
to  put  Leonie  to  sleep.  She  was  then  in  another  house,  about 
five  hundred  meters  away,  and  she  had  never  been  to  sleep  at 
that  hour  of  the  day.  He  then  went  to  Madame  B.  and,  to 
his  disappointment,  found  her  wide  awake.  He  himself  put  her 
to  sleep  in  the  usual  way. 

"  I  know  very  well,"  Leonie  said  to  Dr.  Janet,  "  that  Dr. 
Gibert  has  wished  to  put  me  to  sleep ;  but  when  I  felt  him,  I  at 
once  put  my  hands  in  cold  water.  .  .  .  /  know  that  he  cannot 
put  me  to  sleep  thus.** 

The  truth  was  that  she  had  actually  put  her  hands  in  cold 
water  before  the  arrival  of  Dr.  Janet. 

What  shows  very  well  that  in  this  case,  and  in  all 
cases  of  this  nature,  the  essential  element  is  the  trans- 
mission of  thought  —  diapsychism  and  not  suggestion 
—  is  that  when  the  subject  enters  spontaneously  into 
the  state  of  somnambulism  she  does  not  obey  the  will  of 
the  operator,  and  much  less  does  she  feel  his  influence 
or  receive  the  communication  of  his  thought. 

Can  it  be  said,  therefore,  that  this  experiment  failed, 
as  Dr.  Janet  claimed?  On  the  contrary,  it  seems  to  us 
that  it  succeeded  even  better  than  if  the  sleep  had  effec- 
tively been  produced;  for  that  which  is  important  is  not 
the  obedience  of  the  subject  to  the  order  given  him 
(obedience  which  is  merely  the  banal  fact  of  ordinary 
suggestion),  but  it  Is  the  transmission  of  this  order  to 
the  subject,  in  conditions  where  It  Is  impossible  for  him 
to  receive  It  by  means  of  normal  perception. 

The  same  experiment  was  undertaken  In  somewhat 
different  conditions. 

Dr.  Janet  asked  Dr.  Gibert  to  put  Leonie  to  sleep,  not  at 
that  moment,  but  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later.     He  then  started 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     195 

to  go  to  her  immediately,  to  watch  the  effects  upon  her  and  to 
prevent  her  from  putting  her  hands  in  cold  water;  but  Leonie 
had  shut  herself  up  in  her  room. 

At  the  moment  agreed  upon  with  Dr.  Gibert,  Dr.  Janet 
went  up  to  her,  and  found  her  lying  across  a  chair,  in  a  most 
uncomfortable  position,  and  sound  asleep.  Her  first  words,  as 
soon  as  she  entered  into  the  somnambulistic  state,  were  a  pro- 
test against  the  surprise  which  had  been  given  her:  "Why 
does  Dr.  Gibert  put  me  to  sleep  from  his  house  ?  I  did  not  have 
time  to  put  my  hands  in  the  basin  of  water.     I  will  not.  ..." 

Neither  Dr.  Janet  nor  any  of  the  assistants  had  the  least 
influence  over  her,  and  none  of  them  could  provoke  muscular 
contraction.  In  order  to  wake  the  subject,  they  were  obliged 
to  find  Dr.  Gibert. 

The  experiment  of  October  14  is  perhaps  even  more 
astonishing. 

That  day  Dr.  Gibert  was  in  Granville,  about  two  kilometers 
from  Leonie.  Dr.  Janet  suggested  that  Dr.  Gibert  put 
Madame  B.  to  sleep  at  any  hour  whatever  of  the  day  —  the 
hour  to  be  designated  by  a  third  person,  so  that  he  personally 
should  not  know  it.  He  went  to  Leonie  at  about  half-past 
four,  and  found  that  she  had  been  sleeping  soundly  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour. 

At  five  o'clock,  still  asleep,  she  began  to  moan,  to  tremble, 
and  to  murmur:  "Enough  .  .  .  enough  ...  do  not  do 
that.*'  She  stood  up,  she  took  a  few  steps;  then,  bursting  into 
laughter,  she  threw  herself  backward  into  the  chair,  and  was 
instantly  in  deep  sleep. 

At  five  minutes  past  five,  the  same  scene  was  repeated:  the 
trembling,  the  moaning,  the  efforts  to  get  up,  to  walk,  the 
laughter,  with  these  words :  "  You  cannot  ...  if  a  little,  if 
only  a  little  you  are  distracted,  I  shall  wake.  .  .  ."  Then  deep 
sleep  again. 


196  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

At  ten  minutes  past  five,  the  same  actions  were  repeated. 

When  Dr.  Gibert  arrived  at  half-past  five,  he  showed  Dr. 
Janet  a  note  which  had  been  given  to  him  by  a  third  person, 
M.  D.,  and  which  asked  him  to  command  Leonie  mentally 
to  perform  different  complicated  acts  every  five  minutes  be- 
ginning with  five  o'clock. 

This  time,  also,  true  suggestion  had  failed,  but 
diapsychism  —  the  communication  of  thought  —  had 
fully  taken  place.  No  example  could  better  show  the 
radical  distinction  between  these  two  phenomena,  which 
the  one  appellation  mental  suggestion  tends  to  confuse. 

However,  it  was  quite  possible  to  succeed  with  Leonie 
in  experiments  of  true  mental  suggestion,  provided  that 
instead  of  commanding  her  to  execute  the  order  im- 
mediately, during  the  sleep,  she  was  mentally  com- 
manded to  execute  an  action  sometime  later,  after  she 
woke.  Dr.  Janet  cites  three  experiments  made  in  these 
conditions : 

First  Experiment 

Dr.  Gibert,  without  speaking  a  word,  held  his  forehead  near 
Leonie's  and  mentally  ordered  her  to  come  between  eleven  in 
the  morning  and  noon,  and  "  to  offer  a  glass  of  water  to  each 
of  these  gentlemen."  He  did  not  tell  this  order  to  any  one,  but 
merely  wrote  it  on  a  piece  of  paper,  which  he  put  in  an 
envelope. 

At  half-past  eleven  Leonie  manifested  the  greatest  agitation. 
She  left  the  kitchen,  got  a  drinking-glass,  and,  carrying  it, 
entered  the  room  and  asked  Dr.  Janet  if  he  had  not  called  her. 

At  last  she  fell  asleep,  through  the  efforts  of  Dr.  Gibert,  who 
was  some  distance  away.  And  in  her  sleep  she  excused  herself 
for  not  having  carried  out  the  suggestion  fully.  "...  I  was 
all  a-tremble  when  I  came  to  ask  you  if  I  had  been  called  .  .  . 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     197 

it  was  not  easy  to  carry  the  tray  .  .  .  why  am  I  wanted  to  carry 
those  glasses?  ..." 

Second  Experiment 

Dr.  Gibert  and  Dr.  Janet  at  first  thought  of  commanding 
the  subject  to  pluck  a  rose  and  visit  the  letter-box  near  the 
entrance  gate;  but  they  then  decided  upon  the  following  sug- 
gestion instead :  "  To-morrow  at  noon  lock  the  doors  of  the 
house."  The  suggestion  was  written  by  Dr.  Janet  upon  a  piece 
of  paper,  which  he  himself  carefully  guarded,  and  it  was  not 
told  to  a  single  person. 

The  following  day,  when  Dr.  Janet  arrived  at  fifteen  min- 
utes before  noon,  he  found  the  house  barricaded  and  the  doors 
locked.  It  was  Leonie  who  had  locked  them.  On  being  ques- 
tioned, she  explained  her  actions  thus :  "  I  felt  very  tired,  and 
I  did  not  want  you  to  get  in  and  put  me  to  sleep." 

At  that  moment  she  was  greatly  agitated.  She  began  to 
wander  about  the  garden,  and  presently  she  plucked  a  rose  and 
went  to  the  letter-box. 

Third  Experiment 

(In  this  experiment  we  once  more  are  in  the  presence  of  the 
possible  disjunction  of  the  suggestive  element  from  the  dia- 
psychic  element  in  the  pretended  mental  suggestion.) 

Dr.  Gibert  ordered  Leonie,  by  thought,  to  open  an  umbrella 
the  following  day  at  noon  and  walk  twice  round  the  garden. 

At  noon  the  next  day  she  again  became  greatly  agitated. 
She  walked  round  the  garden  twice,  but  did  not  open  the 
umbrella. 

When  put  to  sleep  by  Dr.  Janet,  who  wished  to  end  her 
increasing  state  of  agitation,  she  complained  that  she  had  been 
"  made  to  walk  all  about  the  garden.  ...  I  felt  silly  ...  if 
only  the  weather  was  like  yesterday's,  but  to-day  I  should  have 
looked  perfectly  ridiculous."  That  day  the  weather  was  beau- 
tiful, but  the  preceding  day  it  had  rained  hard.     Therefore,  the 


igS    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

order,  incompletely  executed,  had  at  least  been  perfectly  under- 
stood. 

It  can  be  asked,  apropos  of  these  experiments,  if  the 
mechanism  of  sleep  provoked  at  a  distance  by  mental 
action  is  assimilable  to  that  of  true  mental  suggestion 
—  that  which  consists  in  the  transmission  of  an  idea. 
In  other  words,  is  it  really  the  idea  of  sleep,  present  in 
the  mind  of  the  operator,  which  is  perceived,  more  or 
less  consciously,  by  the  mind  of  the  subject,  and  which 
itself  produces  the  sleep,  in  accordance  with  the  well- 
known  laws  of  suggestion;  or  is  it  an  indefinable  influ' 
ence,  emanating  from  the  operator,  which  is  felt  by 
the  subject  and  which  produces  sleep  in  him,  without 
the  intervention  of  any  idea? 

In  this  second  hypothesis,  the  phenomenon  would  be 
allied  more  closely  with  animal  magnetism  than  with 
mental  suggestion ;  and  one  then  could  understand  why 
it  is  often  difficult  to  influence  by  mental  suggestion  cer- 
tain subjects  in  whom  sleep  at  a  distance  can  be  pro- 
voked with  comparative  ease. 

In  Our  Hidden  Forces  ^  we  have  shown  the  necessity 

1 "  Thought-transmission  really  consists  in  having  the  brain  of  A 
fwhen  acting  upon  the  brain  of  B  create  in  the  consciousness  of  B  the 
appearance  of  an  idea  or  of  a  series  of  ideas,  identical  in  nature  to 
those  nvhich  occupy  the  consciousness  of  A.  What  was  sent  from  my 
physical  brain  to  that  of  my  subject  G.  P.,  during  the  hundreds  of 
experiments  with  him,  was  not  the  idea  of  sleep  nor  the  idea  of  wak- 
ing up;  it  was  purely  a  physical  influence  which  produced  sleeping 
and  waking,  independently  of  any  idea." — Our  Hidden  Forces,  p.  283. 

"  The  observation  of  M.  J.  Hericourt,  relative  to  a  woman  in  whom 
he  had  never  been  able  to  provoke  mental  suggestion  distinctly,  but 
who  had  gone  to  sleep  merely  when  he  ^willed  her  to  sleep,  and  who 
felt  a  painful  sensation  in  the  precordial  region  when  he  thought  this 
pain." — Revue  philosophique,   1886. 

Dr.  Albert  Ruault,  who  reported  other  similar  facts   {Revue  philo- 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     199 

for  distinguishing  these  two  hypotheses.  If  this  dis- 
tinction may  appear  filmy,  it  is  because  in  reality  —  as 
we  shall  try  to  show  farther  on  —  biactinism  (animal 
magnetism)  and  diapsychism  (communication  of 
thought)  are  extremely  closely  connected  with  each 
other,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  diapsychism  is  but  a 
particular  derivative  of  biactinism. 

IV 

Perhaps  in  examining  the  question  more  closely  it 
may  be  doubted  that  the  facts  we  are  now  considering 
—  and  in  which  ideas  suggested  mentally  are  related 
wholly  to  acts  or  states  —  are,  strictly  speaking,  sug- 
gestions of  an  intellectual  order,  true  suggestions  of 
ideas;  for  it  well  seems  that  the  idea  of  the  act  or  state 
may  be  here  only  the  means  of  suggestion,  of  which  the 
end  is  this  very  act  or  state. 

What  the  operator  seeks  to  obtain  is  not  that  the 
subject  shall  think  of  the  action  of  "  getting  up  "  or  of 
"  sleeping  ";  but  that  he  shall  actually  get  up  or  sleep. 
To  obtain  this  result,  is  not  his  will  the  essential  factor 
even  more  than  his  intelligence  ? 

The  real  type  of  true  mental  suggestion,  or  at  least 
that  of  purely  intellectual  diapsychism,  would  consist, 
therefore,   in  the  communication  of  an  idea,  which 

sophique,  1886),  insisted  upon  the  difference  between  phenomena  of 
this  order  and  true  mental  suggestion.  Speaking  of  a  young  man,  in 
whom  he  could  himself  provoke  sleep  by  a  simple  effort  of  will,  he 
said:  "It  was  a  case  of  mental  suggestion,  for  I  soon  recognized  that 
he  was  put  to  sleep  solely  by  the  intensity  and  the  duration  of  the 
sensation  that  he  felt  when  I  made  an  effort  of  will  in  thinking  of 
him.  I  mean,  by  this,  that  he  did  not  sleep  because  I  willed  that  he 
sleep,  but  wholly  because  he  felt  strongly  that  my  mind  was  concen- 
trated upon  him." 


200  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

would  be  realized  in  the  mind  of  the  subject  solely  as 
an  idea,  or  in  the  state  of  representation,  of  thought, 
and  not  as  an  excitation  tending  to  provoke  in  him,  out- 
side of  his  mind,  a  certain  state  or  a  certain  act. 

True  mental  suggestion,  or  intellectual  diapsychism, 
is  sometimes  produced  spontaneously  when,  for  ex- 
ample, a  certain  name  comes  suddenly  to  the  mind  of  a 
person  —  without  being  a  result  of  his  preceding 
thoughts  —  at  the  precise  moment  when  another  per- 
son thinks  this  name  and  is  on  the  point  of  pronouncing 
it.  Nearly  always,  however,  one  may  question 
whether  this  is  not  a  chance  coincidence.  Attempts 
have  been  made  to  produce  the  phenomenon  experi- 
mentally, especially  in  England,  in  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research.  In  France,  M.  Charles  Richet 
also  has  made  experiments  along  this  line. 

One  individual,  A,  thinks  successively  of  dif event 
numbers.  Another  individual,  B,  who  is  placed  as  far 
as  possible  in  a  st-ate  of  special  receptivity,  indicates  the 
number  each  time,  the  idea  of  it  having  surged  sud- 
denly into  his  mind. 

Better  still,  A  takes  some  playing-cards,  which  only 
he  can  see,  and  concentrates  his  attention  upon  one  at 
a  time:  B  names  successively  the  cards  of  which  he 
thinks.  A  record  is  kept  of  the  number  of  times  the 
ideas  of  A  and  B  correspond;  and  from  the  calculation 
of  probabilities,  the  number  of  these  agreements  Is 
greater  than  it  could  possibly  be  in  the  hypothesis  of 
chance  coincidences. 

The  experiment  appears  a  little  more  complicated 
when  it  is  a  question  of  transmitting  mentally  the  idea 
of  a  somewhat  familiar  object:  a  watch,  key,  ring,  vase, 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     201 

lamp,  or  even  a  house,  tree,  animal,  etc.  In  experi- 
ments of  this  order  instituted  by  the  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research  of  London,  the  transmitter  A  was  in 
oneiroom,  having  before  his  eyes  a  picture  of  the  object; 
the  receptor  B  was  in  another  room,  nearby,  trying  to 
draw  this  picture  upon  paper  with  a  pencil  —  or  at  least 
the  picture  which  came  to  his  mind,  and  this  was  often 
found  to  conform,  in  its  characteristic  traits,  to  the  pic- 
ture which  A  was  thinking  of  and  gazing  upon  in- 
tensely. 

The  early  mesmerists  already  had  observed  this 
form  of  thought-reading,  without,  however,  sufficiently 
distinguishing  it  from  the  form  in  which  the  communi- 
cation of  ideas  is  made  involuntarily,  unconsciously, 
from  the  operator  to  the  subject,  the  latter  appearing 
rather  to  divine  the  idea,  himself,  without  the  opera- 
tor's having  made  any  effort  to  transmit  an  idea  to 
him. 

''  The  sleeper, ^^  says  W.  Gregory,  "  being  put  en 
rapport  with  any  one  at  all,  can  often  describe,  with  the 
greatest  exactitude,  the  thoughts  of  this  person.  These 
thoughts  may  be  of  an  absent  friend,  or  his  house,  or 
that  of  another,  or  his  dining-room,  his  bedroom,  his 
study,  etc.  All  these  things  are  perceived  by  the 
sleeper  in  proportion  to  the  extent  that  they  occupy  the 
mind  of  the  experimenter.  He  describes  them  very 
minutely  and  very  exactly,  to  the  point  of  really  aston- 
ishing us." 

W.  Gregory  remarks,  moreover,  that  this  form  of 
thought-reading  often  simulates  clairvoyance,  with 
which  it  risks  being  confused,  as  we  shall  show  in  the 
following  chapter. 


202  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

V 

Let  us  consider  now  the  true  reading  or  penetration 
of  thought.  This  differs,  it  must  be  remembered,  from 
mental  suggestion,  in  that  it  is  produced  independently 
of  the  will  of  and  unknown  to  the  operator,  the  active 
role  appearing  this  time  to  belong  wholly  to  the  sub- 
ject. Because  of  this  very  circumstance  the  phenom- 
enon is  difficult  to  constate  with  certainty. 

However,  according  to  certain  contemporary  psy- 
chists,  especially  those  who  are  members  of  societies 
for  psychical  research  or  inspired  by  their  doctrines, 
there  is  in  all  the  order  of  parapsychic  facts  no  phe- 
nomenon more  frequent  than  the  penetration  of 
thought.  It  mingles,  according  to  them,  with  almost 
all  the  others,  and  renders  them  incomprehensible  to 
those  who  do  not  suspect  its  presence,  while  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  admit  its  latent  intervention  in  order  to  have 
all  the  obscurities  made  clear. 

We  can  apply  here  to  the  penetration  of  thought  a 
distinction  that  we  already  have  applied  to  suggestion : 
that  of  fact  and  of  hypothesis.  It  is  one  thing  to  con- 
state directly  the  penetration  of  thought  as  a  fact  that 
we  observe  outside  of  all  reasoning;  and  quite  an- 
other thing  to  suppose  that  it  must  have  been  produced 
on  a  certain  occasion,  because  this  supposition  alone 
permits  us,  we  think,  to  give  a  plausible  solution  to  the 
enigma  which  is  raised  by  some  particular  case. 

I  am  obliged  to  confess,  however,  that  I  myself  have 
never  been  able  to  constate  the  penetration  of  thought, 
thus  understood,  in  conditions  which  would  leave  no 
room  for  doubt,  even  though  my  attention  has  always 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    203 

been  turned  in  this  direction.  With  the  exception  of 
one  subject,  Ludovig  S.,  who  on  four  different  occa- 
sions succeeded  in  enouncing  aloud  a  name  I  had  each 
time  thought  of  silently,^  I  have  never  found  any  one 
who  might  be  in  a  state,  either  to  obey  my  suggestions 
not  manifested  by  word  or  gesture,  or  to  divine  spon- 
taneously my  thoughts,  my  unexpressed  intentions. 
But  it  may  be  that  chance  has  served  me  badly,  or 
that  I  lack  the  special  aptitude  which  perhaps  is  indis- 
pensable to  produce  this  sort  of  phenomenon. 

A  young  member  of  my  family,  who  would  appear 
to  be  particularly  gifted  in  this  connection,  has  told 
of  an  experiment  made  by  him,  where  it  is  impossible 
not  to  see  an  absolutely  genuine  case  of  penetration  of 
thought. 

Having  finished  his  military  service  in  a  regiment  of  in- 
fantry at  Bordeaux,  and  returned  to  Dijon,  he  had  found  in 
the  wife  of  one  of  his  friends  a  hypnotic  subject  of  rare  sensi- 
tiveness. After  putting  her  to  sleep,  he  suggested  to  her  that, 
when  she  woke,  she  would  change  personality  and  would  be 
identified  with  him  as  he  was  during  his  military  service.  "  You 
will  be  Corporal  B.  You  will  have  the  men  of  your  squad 
in  front  of  you,  and  you  will  instruct  them." 

The  subject,  passing  from  sleep  to  a  state  of  apparent  wak- 
ing, began  to  call  the  assistants  in  a  military  manner;  she  ques- 
tioned them  about  the  different  grades,  the  insignia  by  which 
each  is  recognized,  etc.  But  this,  of  course,  was  knowledge 
that  any  one  could  have,  without  necessarily  being  connected 
with  the  army. 

Suddenly,  however,  when  addressing  one  of  the  friends  of 
her  husband  —  mentally  transformed  by  her  into  a  soldier  — 

2  These  experiments  are  described  in  detail  in  Our  Hidden  Forces, 
Chapter  XII. 


204  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

the  young  woman  demanded:  ''What  is  the  name  of  the 
Colonel  of  your  regiment  ?  " 

The  hypnotist  quickly  spoke  the  name,  as  he  knew  that  the 
man  questioned  did  not  know  it. 

"Be  silent!"  the  subject  said  promptly.  "I  am  not  ques- 
tioning you." 

Therefore  he,  as  well  as  the  man  interrogated,  remained 
silent  when  she  asked  the  next  question: 

"What  is  the  name  of  the  Captain  of  your  regiment?" 

What  was  the  hypnotist's  surprise  when  the  subject  herself 
spoke  the  name,  which  he  thought  of  silently  and  which  he 
was  the  only  one  in  the  room  who  knew!  His  surprise  was 
even  greater  when  the  improvised  Corporal  added : 

"  You  must  be  as  stupid  as  cruchade  not  to  know  the  name 
of  your  Captain !  " 

Cruchade  is  the  popular  name  in  Bordelais  (the  dialect 
spoken  in  the  country  around  Bordeaux)  for  corn-pap,  and  the 
expression,  "  stupid  as  cruchade,"  is  currently  employed  among 
the  people  of  Bordeaux  to  express  extreme  stupidity.  The  ex- 
pression is  wholly  unknown  in  Burgundy.  Certainly,  however, 
the  hypnotist  had  often  heard  it;  perhaps  he  himself  had  used 
it  in  speaking  to  men  of  his  squad;  but  surely  he  was  not 
thinking  of  it  at  that  moment.  Not  only,  therefore,  did  the 
subject  —  momentarily  identified  with  the  one  who  had  put  her 
to  sleep  —  read  into  his  actual  and  conscious  thoughts,  but  she 
also  penetrated  even  beyond  his  consciousness,  to  the  very  depths 
of  his  past  remembrances. 

It  is  in  the  realm  of  the  subconscious  that  certain  sub- 
jects are  able  to  clarify  this  ensemble  of  latent,  affec- 
tive, intellectual,  and  active  virtualities  which  compose 
the  character  of  an  individual,  when  they  make  of  this 
character,  in  a  few  minutes,  without  preliminary  indi- 
cations, without  apparent  effort  of  reflection,  a  psy- 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     205 

chological  analysis  such  as  a  professional  psychologist 
operating  with  all  the  resources  known  to  science,  and 
with  the  most  minute  information,  would  certainly  be 
incapable  of  making. 

"  I  could  not  doubt,"  wrote  Dr.  Vaschlde,  "  the  sur- 
prise of  my  friend.  Dr.  von  Schrenk-Notzing,  the  well- 
known  Munich  psychologist,  when  Madame  F.  wrote 
his  psychological  portrait  with  a  richness  of  exuberant 
details.  I  myself  was  ignorant  of  these  details,  and  it 
was  absolutely  impossible  for  Madame  F.  to  have 
known  them  before  my  consultation,  or  even  to  have 
thought  to  obtain  prior  Information  In  any  way  whatso- 
ever; for  I  had  asked  her  to  come,  In  a  note  sent  by 
messenger.     Examples  of  this  kind  are  numerous." 

Undoubtedly,  the  experimental  study  of  lucidity.  In 
the  popular  meaning  of  the  word,  of  cartomancy,  of 
chiromancy,  of  psychometry,  and  of  other  occult  prac- 
tises of  this  nature  —  a  study  evidently  very  daring  and 
in  its  present  form  not  apt  to  tempt  savants  —  would 
nevertheless  reveal  to  us,  in  the  midst  of  much  Illusion 
and  fraud,  unquestionable  and  interesting  cases  of  the 
communication  of  thought. 

Here  Is  a  quotation  from  Dr.  Osty  which  proves  in- 
contestably  the  reality  of  Intellectual  diapsychism  and, 
at  the  same  time,  the  falsity  of  the  "  cartomantic  doc- 
trine." Madame  K.,  a  card-reader,  consulted  her 
cards  for  some  one  of  whom  Dr.  Osty  thought.  He, 
after  cutting  the  pack  and  choosing  a  certain  number  of 
cards,  pictured  mentally  the  person  who  must  serve  as 
the  object  of  the  divination. 

When  she  had  disposed  the  cards,  Madame  K.  began  to  speak 
to  me  of  this  person,  very  clearly  and  very  exactly.    After  a 


2o6     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

few  minutes  I  stopped  thinking  of  the  person  in  question. 
Madame  K.,  however,  was  still  speaking  to  me  when,  suddenly, 
I  regretted  not  having  exercised  this  prophetic  science  in  behalf 
of  one  of  my  friends  whose  present  life  was  so  active  that  he 
would  yield  far  richer  material  for  experimentation.  Scarcely 
had  this  thought  entered  my  mind  when  the  card-reader  abruptly 
began  making  revelations  which  exclusively  concerned  this  sec- 
ond person.  The  lives  of  these  two  were  so  diiferent  that  the 
subject  soon  expressed  her  astonishment  at  the  odd  dissocia- 
tion which  seemed  to  exist  in  the  one  individuality  which  she 
believed  she  was  interpreting. 

Since  then  I  have  observed  in  card-readers,  as  many  times 
as  I  have  wished,  this  influence  of  the  thought  of  the  consult- 
ant upon  the  direction  of  their  lucidity. 

In  spiritistic  seances  it  is  not  unusual  to  establish  the 
fact  that  the  responses  given  by  the  table,  the  plan- 
chette,  or  the  pencil,  reflect  not  the  thoughts  of  the 
medium  but  those  of  some  one  of  the  assistants,  who  is 
wholly  surprised  to  see  thus  revealed  publicly  what 
he  believed  to  be  hidden  deep  within  his  own  heart.  It 
is  true  that  believers  In  the  spiritistic  doctrine  probably 
would  refuse  to  recognize.  In  this,  diapsychism  as  an 
evident  fact,  and  would  consider  it  merely  an  hypothe- 
sis, which  they  have  the  right  to  oppose  and  to  displace 
by  some  other.  But  If  the  choice  must  be  determined 
by  exclusively  scientific  reasons,  the  hypothesis  of  di- 
apsychism, in  conditions  such  as  those  we  have  Indi- 
cated, imposes  itself  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others. 

VI 

Meanwhile,  we  come  to  the  facts  for  which  di- 
apsychism is  offered  to  us  as  a  more  or  less  plausible 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    207 

explanation,  and  which,  if  this  interpretation  were 
definitely  adopted,  would  prove  not  only  that  the  com- 
munication of  thought  is  a  reality,  but  also  that  it  is  a 
very  frequent  reality;  and  that  it  is  necessary  to  see  in 
diapsychism  as  much  as,  or  even  more  than,  in  sugges- 
tion, the  key  to  the  greater  part  of  the  parapsychic  phe- 
nomena. 

First  of  all,  there  is  phreno-magnetism,  which  re- 
mains a  still  unsolved  enigma. 

"  In  some  magnetic  subjects,"  says  W.  Gregory,  "  if 
we  touch  a  given  part  of  their  head  —  such  as,  for  ex- 
ample, the  organ  of  musical  sounds  or  of  self-esteem  — 
we  obtain  instantly  a  corresponding  manifestation 
without  a  word  of  suggestion.  It  is  really,  in  many 
cases,  as  if  we  were  to  touch  the  key  of  a  pipe-organ 
when  the  bellows  are  full  of  wind,  thus  producing  the 
sound  instantly.  If  the  musicial  sound  is  the  organ 
touched,  the  subject  soon  begins  to  sing.  If  it  is  self- 
esteem,  he  throws  his  head  back,  is  filled  with  an  Im- 
mense dignity,  and  declares  himself  superior  to  the  rest 
of  humanity.  If  the  organ  of  the  love  of  children  be 
touched,  the  subject  cradles  an  Imaginary  baby  with  a 
realistic  paternal  affection." 

Gregory  thus  follows  the  series  of  effects  produced 
by  touching  different  parts  of  the  cranium :  benevolence, 
acquisitiveness,  prudence,  hope,  etc. 

"  I  have  spoken,"  said  he,  "  of  only  a  small  part 
of  what  I  have  often  seen  and  often  produced.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  I  have  experimented  only  In  cases 
where  fraud  was  not  and  could  not  have  been  prac- 
tised. The  question  Is,  rather :  How  are  these  ejects 
produced?'' 


2o8  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

To  this  question  he  replies  that  in  certain  cases  "  the 
suggestion  or  the  will  of  the  operator,  or  the  sympathy 
between  the  operator  and  the  subject,  is  sufficient  to 
explain  the  facts."  This  is  to  recognize  the  possible 
intervention  of  diapsychism  in  phreno-magnetism. 
"  But,"  he  adds,  **  there  are  other  cases  where  this 
explanation  is  valueless,"  and  he  enumerates  the  proofs 
of  this  assertion. 

First,  the  subject  is  often  ignorant  of  even  the  name 
of  phrenology,  and  does  not  know  the  situation  of  any 
organ.  This  does  not  hinder  him  from  reacting  in- 
stantly to  the  contact,  at  whatever  moment  it  may  be 
produced,  exactly  as  if  the  will  or  the  thought  of  the 
operator  were  the  agent.  But,  it  may  be  said,  it  mat- 
ters not  that  the  subject  may  be  Ignorant  of  what  is  ex- 
pected, if  the  operator  knows  it. 

A  second  and  stronger  argument  is  that  when  the 
operator,  as  often  happens,  is  as  ignorant  of  phrenol- 
ogy as  is  the  subject,  he  is  surprised  and  confused  by 
the  result;  for,  in  touching  a  certain  part,  he  did  not 
know  the  function  and  consequently  had  no  will  what- 
ever in  this  respect.  However,  there  also,  asserts  W. 
Gregory,  the  manifestation  is  just  as  easily  produced. 
Better  still,  the  pressure  of  a  chair,  or  a  wall,  upon  any 
part  of  the  head,  even  though  it  may  be  accidental,  or 
the  accidental  contact  of  a  hand  or  an  arm,  whether  of 
the  operator  or  some  one  else,  will  produce  the  same 
effects.  Also,  it  often  happens  that  when  an  operator, 
acquainted  with  phrenology.  Intends  to  touch  a  certain 
organ  and,  turning  to  speak  to  some  one,  touches  by 
mistake  another  organ  while  thinking  of  the  first,  he  Is 
surprised  by  what  he  believes  to  be  the  wrong  result. 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    209 

until  he  discovers  the  cause.     This  happens  in  cases 
where  the  subject  has  no  knowledge  of  phrenology. 

It  is  necessary  to  state  that  although  these  facts  have 
been  closely  studied,  they  are  absolutely  incomprehensi- 
ble to  us.  And  we  cannot  agree  with  Gregory's  conclu- 
sion that  in  all  cases  where  sympathy  or  the  will  —  in 
other  words,  mental  suggestion,  or  diapsychism  —  is 
not  a  sufficient  explanation,  "  the  results  obtained  can 
be  explained  only  by  admitting  the  phrenological  cen- 
ters and  the  influence  of  the  operator  upon  these  organs 
by  contact."  Undoubtedly,  there  slips  into  these  ex- 
periments, unknown  to  the  observers,  a  cause  of  error 
which  it  is  very  difficult  to  discover.  It  would  be 
interesting,  therefore,  to  institute  new  researches  in 
an  effort  to  solve  so  baffling  a  problem. 

The  same  point  arises  regarding  many  other  para- 
psychic  facts.     We  shall  cite  here  only  the  most  salient. 

The  importance  attributed  by  the  School  of  the  Sal- 
petriere  to  the  phenomenon  of  transference  is  well 
known.  This  phenomenon  consists  in  the  fact  that 
"  under  the  influence  of  metals  —  or,  better  still,  of  the 
magnet  —  when  there  appear  in  certain  subjects  mani- 
festations of  hysteria  —  such  as  sensitive  and  sensorial 
anesthesia,  paralysis,  contractions,  and  arthralgia  — 
which  are  limited  to  one  side  of  the  body,  they  dis- 
appear from  this  side  and  appear  on  the  opposite  side." 

But  the  phenomenon  of  transference  is  not  confined 
to  that.  Two  subjects  en  rapport  with  each  other  can 
play  a  role  analogous  to  that  which  in  a  single  subject 
one  side  of  the  body  plays  en  rapport  with  the  other 
side.  Often  this  transference  from  one  side  to  the 
other,  or  from  one  subject  to  another,  appears  again 


210  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

spontaneously  without  a  new  metallic  application  and  is 
repeated  a  certain  number  of  times  in  succession,  as  if 
by  consecutive  oscillations.  The  anesthesia,  paralysis, 
contractions,  etc.,  can  be  thus  transferred  not  only  when 
they  exist  naturally  in  the  patient  but  even  when  they 
have  been  produced  artificially  by  suggestion. 

The  School  of  Nancy  naturally  attributes  these  curi- 
ous effects  to  suggestion.  Those  who  have  obtained 
the  phenomenon,  however,  declare  that  "  the  conditions 
are  such  that  all  idea  of  simulation  or  of  suggestion 
must  be  absolutely  eliminated." 

**  Engaged  in  new  researches,"  said  Binet,  "  we 
were,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  incapable  of  foreseeing 
the  result.  We  have  hidden  the  magnet  under  a  cloth, 
and  the  same  effects  were  produced ;  we  have  made  the 
magnet  invisible  by  suggestion,  and  the  effect  has  con- 
tinued to  be  produced ;  we  have  used  a  magnet  made  of 
wood,  and  the  effects  have  been  the  same;  we  have 
experimented  upon  entirely  new  patients,  and  have 
obtained  identical  results." 

All  these  assertions  effectively  exclude  ordinary  sug- 
gestion. But,  with  the  exception  of  the  first,  do  they 
equally  exclude  mental  suggestion  under  the  form  of  in- 
voluntary diapsychism? 

In  order  to  answer  this  question  satisfactorily,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  undertake  experiments  in  condi- 
tions that  would  prevent  the  operator,  as  well  as  the 
subject,  from  being  able  to  form  in  advance  any  idea  of 
the  results. 

It  is  not  only  with  regard  to  transference  that  the 
opponents  of  the  School  of  Salpetriere  might  resort 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    211 

profitably  to  the  hypothesis  of  diapsychism ;  it  is  with 
regard  to  almost  all  the  particularities  attributed  to 
hypnotism  by  the  doctrines  of  this  School.  It  is  true 
that  it  would  be  necessary  for  them  to  go  beyond  the 
narrow  circle  of  suggestion  proper,  where  they  believe 
themselves  on  firm  ground,  and  to  venture  upon  the 
quicksands  of  mental  suggestion;  but,  sooner  or  later, 
they  will  be  forced  to  do  so.  We  do  not  believe  that 
they  can  indefinitely  claim,  without  giving  precise 
proofs,  that  all  observers  and  experimenters  who  do 
not  agree  with  them  upon  a  given  detail  of  hypnotic 
phenomena  have  owed  to  their  suggestions  the  effects 
they  have  related. 

Although  the  phenomenon  has  been  produced  some- 
times, often  even,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that 
it  can  be  produced  always.  In  some  cases  these  savants 
declare  that  they  have  scrupulously  abstained  from  sug- 
gesting anything  to  their  subjects;  and  we  have  no  rea- 
son for  doubting  their  word.  But  if  they  have  sug- 
gested nothing  voluntarily,  knowingly,  it  is  possible  — ^ 
if  diapsychism  exists  —  that  their  subjects  have  never- 
theless divined  their  thought  and  that  this  thought  may 
be  manifested  in  the  phenomena  observed. 

It  may  be,  for  example,  the  phenomenon  of  neuro- 
muscular hyperexcitability,  which  according  to  the 
School  of  Charcot,  characterizes  one  of  the  phases 
of  hypnotism:  i.  e.,  lethargy.  The  School  of  Nancy 
asserts  that  it  has  never  constated  this  phenomenon, 
and  it  concludes,  therefore,  that  it  must  be  a  simple 
effect  of  suggestion.  However,  it  is  very  difficult  to 
believe  —  so  long  as  they  have  furnished  no  proof  — 


212  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

that  all  those  who  have  observed  it  have  begun  by  an- 
nouncing it  and  describing  it  aloud  in  the  presence  of 
their  subjects.  But  if  diapsychism  actually  exists,  it  is 
possible  that  their  thought,  in  the  absence  of  their  word, 
has  been  sufficient  to  provoke  the  phenomenon. 

We  can  say  as  much  of  the  zones  and  the  hypnq^genic 
points,  and  in  general  of  the  hysterical  stigmata  ad- 
mitted by  the  School  of  the  Salpetriere,  as  facts  exist- 
ing in  themselves,  previous  to  observation,  which  is 
made  only  to  reveal  them,  and  considered  by  the  School 
of  Nancy  as  illusions,  created  by  the  suggestions  of 
those  who  observe  them. 

If  the  intervention  of  diapsychism  be  admitted  in  all 
these  cases,  one  must  believe  that  the  idea  alone  is  not 
sufficient  for  the  success  of  mental  suggestion,  but  that 
it  is  necessary  to  have,  in  addition,  the  belief  (even 
though  in  many  other  cases  —  and  this  is  not  the  least 
of  the  obscurities  of  the  question  —  the  idea,  without 
the  belief,  would  appear  sufficient). 

Let  us  imagine  that  two  observers  experiment  suc- 
cessively with  the  same  subject,  one  imbued  with  the 
doctrines  of  the  School  of  Salpetriere,  and  the  other 
with  those  of  the  School  of  Nancy.  The  first  seeks 
to  verify  the  neuro-muscular  hyperexcitability,  and  he 
succeeds;  the  second,  proceeding  by  hypothesis  in  exactly 
the  same  way,  constates  a  negative  result.  The  second, 
as  well  as  the  first,  has  in  his  mind  the  idea  of  the  phe- 
nomenon and  of  its  diverse  particularities.  But  the 
first  believes  that  the  phenomenon  is  possible  and  that 
he  will  produce  it;  the  second,  on  the  contrary,  believes 
that  the  phenomenon  will  not  be  produced.  The  sub- 
ject is,  therefore,  capable  of  perceiving  the  difference 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    213 

between  these  two  ideas ;  one  accompanied  by  belief,  the 
other  by  unbelief,  and  this  is  why  he  reacts  differently 
to  each  of  them. 

What  would  happen  if  the  two  operators  were  to  act 
upon  the  subject  at  the  same  time,  and  one  of  them 
were  to  have  a  preponderating  influence  upon  him? 
While  one  tends  unconsciously  to  arouse  the  phenome- 
non, the  other  tends  unconsciously  to  hinder  it.  Does 
the  first  prevail  over  the  second?  The  partizan  of 
the  School  of  Nancy  will  be  astonished  to  see  the  sub- 
ject realize  —  without  apparent  suggestion  —  what  he 
was  assured  could  be  realized  only  through  suggestion. 
The  partizan  of  the  School  of  the  Salpetriere  will  be 
equally  astonished  to  see  that  the  expected  effect,  often 
obtained  by  him,  is  suddenly  incapable  of  being  pro- 
duced. 

Let  us  remark,  however,  that  the  inhibitory  action  of 
mental  suggestion,  even  also  as  that  of  ordinary  sug- 
gestion, is  not  necessarily  confined  to  phenomena  sus- 
ceptible to  be  provoked  by  suggestion,  and  that  conse- 
quently the  suppression  of  a  phenomenon  by  an  inhibi- 
tory suggestion  does  not  prove  that  in  the  absence  of 
this  suggestion  the  phenomenon  would  not  be  produced 
naturally.  I  could,  by  suggestion,  suppress  in  a  pa- 
tient certain  symptoms  of  his  illness;  is  this  a  reason 
for  pretending  that  these  symptoms  in  him  were  only 
the  effects  of  a  counter-suggestion  ?  Let  us  admit,  for 
hypothesis,  that  signs  of  hysteria  exist  effectively;  if 
we  admit  at  the  same  time,  the  possibility  of  a  dia- 
psychic  inhibition,  an  observer  capable  of  exerting  this 
inhibition  unconsciously  upon  hysterical  subjects  will 
never  constate  these  signs,  because  by  his  very  presence 


214     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

he  will  hinder  their  manifestation.  Yet  it  cannot  logi- 
cally be  concluded  that  other  observers,  who  have  con- 
stated them,  have  been  the  playthings  of  illusion.  Per- 
haps certain  operators  may  be  particularly  apt  to  in- 
fluence the  parapsychic  phenomena  thus  negatively. 

Certainly,  this  is  only  an  hypothesis,  but  it  is  not 
devoid  of  truth,  and  it  would  be  well  worth  while 
to  control  it  experimentally. 

It  is  especially  in  the  realm  of  magnetoidal  facts  that 
diapsychism  is  called  upon  to  explain  all  that  which 
would  appear  to  contradict  the  opinions  of  official 
science,  as  if  diapsychism  were  not  itself  in  positive  con- 
tradiction to  these  opinions. 

When  M.  de  Rochas  explained,  under  the  name  of 
exteriorization  of  the  sensitiveness,  the  singular  phe- 
nomena which  he  had  discovered,  they  were  at  once 
attributed  to  the  suggestions  that  he  had  involunta- 
rily made  to  his  subjects;  and  when  this  explanation 
appeared  decidedly  Insufficient,  it  was  claimed  that  the 
silent  thought  of  the  experimenter  had  In  some  way 
suggested  to  the  subjects  the  manifestations  of  which 
they  had  given  him  testimony. 

Permit  me  here  to  cite  a  few  personal  experiments. 

I  happened  to  read  in  a  prominent  Parisian  period- 
ical an  article  upon  M.  de  Rochas's  discovery,  which 
explained  the  processes  employed  by  him  to  "exterior- 
ize the  sensitiveness  "  of  a  hypnotized  subject,  and  the 
results  which  he  thus  obtained.  This  account  had 
aroused  my  curiosity,  but  at  the  same  time  had  left  me 
very  skeptical.  I  decided  to  learn  how  much  reality 
there  was  in  all  this.     I  had  then  at  my  disposal  a  large 


exti:riokizatiu\  of  the  se\siti\'i:ni:ss 

After  ihe  hypnotized  subject  holds  the  glass  a  few  moments,  the 
operator  lakes  it  and  pinches  the  air  above  the  water.  Every  pinch 
thus  inflicted  —  some  distance  away  from  the  subject  —  is  felt  by 
her  keenly  in  the  hand  she  has  held  above  the  glass. 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    215 

number  of  subjects:  all  young  people  who  would  lend 
themselves  well  to  these  experiments. 

My  first  three  attempts  gave  me  only  a  negative  re- 
sult, although  at  least  one  of  my  subjects  was  of  ex- 
ceptional sensibility.  It  goes  without  saying  that  I  be- 
gan first  by  scrupulously  imitating  the  operative  method 
of  M.  de  Rochas.  Then,  seeing  that  it  did  not  result 
in  any  of  the  desired  phenomena,  I  added  verbal  sug- 
gestion, thus  intentionally  inciting  the  subjects  to  fraud. 
It  is  necessary  to  believe  that  simulation,  in  the  condi- 
tions in  which  the  subjects  were  placed,  was  not  easy 
for  them;  for,  even  thus,  I  obtained  nothing.  I  was, 
therefore,  almost  convinced  that  M.  de  Rochas  had 
either  deceived  himself  or  been  deceived,  that  either 
he  had  been  more  able  than  I  to  suggest  the  subjects  un- 
consciously, or  that  they  had  been  more  clever  at  simu- 
lating than  my  subjects. 

A  short  time  afterward,  being  in  a  meeting  of  young 
Parisian  workmen,  and  having  put  one  of  them  to  sleep 
—  Auguste  M.,  aged  sixteen  or  seventeen  —  I  suddenly 
conceived  the  idea  of  trying  once  more  to  produce  the 
exteriorization  of  the  sensitiveness. 

"  Get  me,"  I  said,  "  a  glass  and  a  bottle  of  water.'' 

The  assistants  believed  that  I  intended  to  produce 
a  state  of  intoxication  by  suggestion.  At  least,  that  is 
what  they  whispered  among  themselves. 

The  subject  stood  facing  me,  blindfolded.  Having 
filled  the  glass  three-quarters  full  of  water,  I  put  it 
upon  the  palm  of  his  left  hand,  placing  his  right  hand 
above  the  glass,  a  few  centimeters  from  the  water. 
After  a  few  minutes  I  withdrew  the  glass  and,  without 


2i6  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

speaking  a  word,  bruskly  pinched  the  air  it  contained. 
Instantly,  to  my  great  surprise,  the  subject  cried: 
*'  Ouch  I  You  are  hurting  me!  "  and  quickly  clasped 
his  right  hand  with  his  left. 

"  I  have  hurt  you  ?  "  I  said  to  him.     "  How  ?  " 

He  took  between  the  thumb  and  the  index  finger  of 
his  left  hand  the  skin  of  the  back  of  his  right  hand 
and  twisted  it,  exactly  as  I  had  taken  and  twisted  the 
air. 

I  then  pricked  the  surface  of  the  water  with  a  pin. 

"  You  are  pricking  me  now  I  Will  you  soon  stop 
tormenting  me?  " 

Going  quickly  behind  him,  I  repeated  the  same  oper- 
ations ;  and  the  subject  again  protested  about  my  pinches 
and  pin-pricks. 

Suddenly  I  held  the  glass  to  my  lips  and  blew  upon 
the  water.  Instantly  the  subject  raised  his  hands  to 
his  eyes  and  awoke,  exactly  as  if  I  had  blown  upon  his 
eyes  to  wake  him. 

I  was  thenceforth  convinced  that  the  exteriorization 
of  the  sensitiveness,  whatever  its  real  nature  may  be, 
was  not  in  every  case  pure  illusion,  and  I  was  more 
than  ever  desirous  of  studying  it.  I  asked  young  Au- 
guste,  therefore,  to  come  again,  with  as  many  of  his 
friends  as  he  wished  to  bring  with  him,  but  this  time 
to  my  clinic,  where  it  would  be  easier  for  me  to  experi- 
ment. 

He  came  the  following  day;  but  what  was  my  sur- 
prise when,  after  placing  myself  in  the  same  conditions 
with  him  as  before,  I  could  not  find  in  him  any  of  the 
expected  reactions!  Had  I,  then,  dreamed  when  I 
had  believed  that  I  observed  them  the  preceding  day? 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    217 

Upon  the  remark  of  one  of  the  assistants  that  this 
lack  of  success  was  due  perhaps  to  the  fact  that  im- 
mediately before  coming  to  me,  Auguste  M.  had  been 
the  object  of  attempts  at  hypnotization  on  the  part  of 
his  comrades,  I  woke  him,  then  plunged  him  into  a 
deeper  sleep.  I  then  had  the  satisfaction  of  provoking 
in  him  again  all  the  phenomena  previously  observed, 
and  this  time  with  a  more  severe  control,  the  eyes  of 
the  subject  being  hermetically  bandaged. 

Since  then  I  have  been  able  to  constate  the  exteriori- 
zation of  the  sensitiveness,  not,  of  course,  in  all  sub- 
jects upon  whom  I  have  experimented,  but  in  a  suffi- 
ciently large  number  of  them  to  convince  me  that  it  is 
a  real  phenomenon,  of  which  the  cause,  whatever  it 
may  be,  is  certainly  something  other  than  ordinary  sug- 
gestion. Among  these  subjects  I  could  mention  Gus- 
tave  P.,  Jean  M.,  and  Ludovig  S.,  of  whom  I  have  had 
frequent  occasion  to  speak  elsewhere.^ 

In  the  absence  of  ordinary  suggestion,  is  it  mental 
suggestion  that  causes  the  exteriorization  of  the  sen- 
sitiveness ? 

It  is  possible  that  it  intervenes,  in  certain  cases,  as  a 
perturbant  or  stimulant  cause;  for  if  it  exists  —  and  its 
existence  cannot  be  doubted  —  it  is  certainly  capable  of 
playing  this  role.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  it  may 
be  taken  for  granted  —  a  priori  and  without  further 
proof  than  this  simple  possibility  —  that  it  is  the  sole 
and  sufficient  cause  of  every  case  observed. 

Especially  in  my  experiments  with  Auguste  M.,  it 
could  not  well  have  been  my  thought  which  provoked 

3  Many  interesting  experiments  with  these  subjects  are  described  in 
Our  Hidden  Forces. 


2i8    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

the  phenomenon.  Because  of  the  failure  of  all  of 
my  preceding  attempts,  and  now  having  a  compara- 
tively new  subject,  my  thought  was  rather  that  I  should 
not  succeed  in  obtaining  any  effect.  And  in  the  second 
seance,  because  of  the  success  I  already  had  obtained, 
my  thought  expected  the  exteriorization  of  the  sensi- 
tiveness, and  solicited  it  intensely;  yet,  in  spite  of  this, 
the  phenomenon  refused  to  appear  to  me  again. 

Here,  therefore,  is  a  problem  which  one  should  not 
be  in  haste  to  declare  solved;  for  its  solution  must  be 
sought  patiently,  and  by  the  application  of  the  only 
method  which  can  enable  us  to  discover  it  —  the  ex- 
perimental method. 

This  is  true,  also,  of  the  phenomenon  of  polarity. 
The  majority  of  early  mesmerists  believed  that  the 
force  known  as  magnetic,  more  aptly  called  "  biactinic," 
is  polarized  —  that  is  to  say,  is  at  the  same  time  posi- 
tive and  negative,  precisely  as  electricity  and  physical 
magnetism.  For  example,  the  right  side  of  the  human 
body,  they  believed,  was  positive,  and  the  left  side 
negative.  This  would  entail  a  whole  series  of  conse- 
quences as  to  the  actions,  isonomic  and  heteronomic, 
exerted  by  one  individual  upon  another. 

I  have  made  too  few  researches  upon  this  subject 
for  my  opinion  —  were  I  to  risk  forming  one  —  to 
have  any  value.  If  I  speak  only  of  my  own  personal 
observations,  I  must  say  that  I  have  encountered  po- 
larity In  one  subject  only,  Gustave  P.,  In  conditions 
which  I  have  given  in  detail  in  Our  Hidden  Forces. 
To  repeat  them  briefly: 

The  right  hand  held  opposite  the  subject's  forehead 
for  a  few  minutes  made  him  pass  successively  through 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT     219 

three  different  and  distinctly  characterized  states:  fas- 
cination, catalepsy,  and  somnambulism.  The  left 
hand,  inversely,  destroyed  the  effect  of  the  right  hand, 
causing  the  subject  to  pass  successively  from  somnam- 
bulism to  catalepsy,  from  catalepsy  to  the  state  of 
fascination,  and  from  the  state  of  fascination  to  the 
waking  state.  Also,  the  operator's  right  hand,  di- 
rected toward  the  subject's  hand,  his  elbow,  his  foot, 
his  knee,  etc.,  determined  movements  of  attraction;  the 
left  hand  produced,  in  the  member  aimed  at,  trembling, 
agitation  accompanied  by  a  tingling  sensation.  And 
this  double  action,  positive  and  negative,  was  con- 
ducted by  means  of  a  metal  wire,  according  as  the 
operator  held  the  wire  in  his  right  hand  or  his  left 
hand. 

Certainly,  verbal  suggestion,  as  practised  by  the 
School  of  Nancy,  had  no  place  in  these  manifestations, 
since  the  experimenter  operated  in  the  most  absolute 
silence,  after  having  thoroughly  blindfolded  the  sub- 
ject. 

But  cannot  the  effects  he  attributed  to  the  communi- 
cation of  thought? 

This  hypothesis  is  seductive.  It  does  not,  however, 
take  into  account  a  certain  number  of  circumstances 
which  concur  with  it  badly. 

First:  The  operator,  who  had  assisted  previously 
in  experiments  of  polarity  in  a  circle  of  mesmerists 
with  very  restricted  ideas  on  the  subject,  had  seen  four 
states  succeed  one  another  in  subjects  submitted  to  the 
actions  of  both  hands;  the  state  of  fascination,  cata- 
lepsy, somnambulism,  and  lethargy;  and  among  the 
characteristics  of  the  first  state  was  total  anesthesia. 


220    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

If,  therefore,  the  phenomena  must  be  aroused  and 
formed  by  his  thoughts,  he  should  find  the  same  phases 
and  the  same  characteristics.  However,  in  spite  of  all 
his  efforts,  he  never  found  that  lethargy  succeeded  the 
somnambulistic  state  in  Gustave  P.,  nor  anesthesia  ac- 
company the  state  of  fascination. 

Second:  It  was  wholly  by  chance  that  the  opera- 
tor's right  hand  was  placed  near  the  subject's  elbow, 
when  this  appeared  attracted  in  his  direction.  At 
that  moment  the  operator  had  no  intention  of  making 
any  experiment  whatever.  When,  however,  he  tried 
the  action  of  his  left  hand,  he  expected  to  obtain  a  re- 
pulsion, and  was  thoroughly  astonished  to  constate 
trembling  and  tingling.  The  combined  action  of  the 
two  hands  must,  he  then  supposed,  produce  a  null 
effect,  one  neutralizing  the  other;  but,  wholly  on  the 
contrary,  he  found  that  there  was  a  coexistence  of  their 
effects. 

Here  again,  we  should  not  hasten  to  reach  any  con- 
clusion, but  should  understand  that  the  question  must 
remain  open. 

And  there  is  greater  reason  why  we  should  not  con- 
sider the  reduction  of  hiactinism  (animal  magnetism) 
to  diapsychism  as  definitely  established.  In  France  the 
partizans  of  this  theory  are  all  those  whom  the  study 
of  true  suggestion,  carried  sufficiently  far,  has  finally 
induced  to  admit  the  reality  of  mental  suggestion,  and 
who  believe  that  by  retaining  the  word  "  suggestion  " 
they  keep  also  the  fact  and  remain  faithful  to  the 
official  doctrine.  In  England  its  partizans  are  those 
whom  the  study  of  telepathy  has  convinced  of  the  possi- 
bility of  an  action  exerted  by  one  individual  upon  the 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    221 

brain  of  another  individual,  in  spite  of  the  often  con- 
siderable distance  which  separates  them. 

While  the  partizans  of  animal  magnetism  attrib- 
ute the  effects  produced  by  passes,  the  gaze,  and  also 
the  thought  and  the  will  of  the  operator,  to  a  force  sui 
generis  emanating  from  his  organism  and  especially 
from  his  nervous  system,  their  opponents  assert  that 
these  effects  are  due  exclusively  to  a  mental  action  which 
has  for  its  starting-point  the  brain  of  the  operator  and 
for  its  point  of  arrival  the  brain  of  the  subject. 
When  my  hand  appears  to  anesthetize,  contract,  or  at- 
tract, etc.,  any  part  of  the  subject's  body,  it  does  not, 
in  reality,  exert  any  action ;  behind  this  screen  is  hidden 
the  true  agent,  which  is  my  thought,  unconsciously 
divined  by  the  subject  and  making  him  obey,  wholly  as 
if  I  were  to  give  him  the  command  aloud.  I  believe 
that  his  arm  will  be  contracted  under  my  passes,  but 
only  because  of  my  belief.  In  order  that  the  contrac- 
tion may  cease,  it  will  be  sufficient  for  me  to  make 
further  passes  upon  his  arm,  believing  that  they  will 
stop  the  contraction.  This  is  not  magnetism ;  it  is  men- 
tal suggestion  or  telepathy,  according  to  the  name  you 
prefer  to  give  it. 

If  this  theory  be  admitted,  one  must  at  the  same 
time  admit  that  the  communication  of  thought  Is  a  phe- 
nomenon much  more  frequent  than  is  ordinarily  be- 
lieved, and  that  it  is  produced  much  more  easily  than 
one  might  think  possible.  This  Insidious  character  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  this  happens  especially  In  the 
region  of  the  subconsciousness :  the  conscious  effort  of 
will  to  transmit  Its  thought  to  other  people,  or  to  re- 
ceive the  thought  of  others,  far  from  aiding  diapsy- 


222     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

chism,  paralyzes  It.  This  explains  the  reason  why 
those  facts  which  prove  It  directly  are  relatively  scarce 
while  those  which  prove  it  indirectly  are  frequent. 

We  already  have  shown,  apropos  of  polarity,  the 
difficulties  of  this  theory,  and  we  should  be  able  to  make 
the  same  objections  to  magnetism.  They  can  be 
summed  up  in  the   following: 

The  effects  which  we  have  observed  in  experiment- 
ing upon  the  radiating  action  of  the  human  body,  and 
especially  of  the  human  hand,  are  often  produced  ( i ) 
in  the  absence  of  all  thought  and  of  all  will  on  our  part 

—  as,  for  example,  when  Gustave  P.'s  elbow  was  at- 
tracted by  a  hand  placed  accidentally  In  its  direction; 
( 2 )  contrary  to  our  will  and  our  thought  —  as  when 
the  left  hand,  instead  of  exercising,  as  we  expected,  a 
repulsive  action,  produced  an  entirely  different  effect. 

Moreover,  in  supposing  that  magnetism  may  be  only 
a  form  of  diapsychism.  It  would  still  be  necessary  to  ex- 
plain diapsychism  Itself,  which,  as  we  shall  see.  Is  scien- 
tifically as  Inexplicable  as  magnetism. 

VII 

It  will  be  objected,  undoubtedly,  that  as  suggestion 
Is  now  an  Incontestable  scientific  truth,  science  must 
equally  recognize  the  communication  of  thought^  which, 
taken  all  In  all.  Is  but  a  particular  form  of  suggestion 

—  as  Indicated  by  the  name  "  mental  suggestion," 
usually  applied  to  It.  If  the  former  Is  explicable  by 
scientific  laws  actually  known,  then  the  latter  also 
must  be  thus  explicable. 

To  reason  in  this  manner  is  to  take  advantage  of  an 
ambiguity. 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    223 

The  pretended  mental  suggestion  —  badly  named  — 
has  nothing  in  common  with  true  suggestion^  at  least 
if  we  consider  its  essential  components.  I  verbally 
order  a  person  to  stand  up,  and  in  spite  of  his  will  to 
the  contrary  he  is  forced  to  obey  me.  That  is  true 
suggestion.  I  mentally  send  the  same  order  to  a  per- 
son who  cannot  see  nor  hear  me;  he  does  not  obey  my 
order,  but  he  tells  those  near  him  that  at  that  very 
moment  I  am  commanding  him  to  stand  up.  There 
the  communication  of  thought  fully  succeeds,  but,  at 
the  same  time,  suggestion  completely  fails. 

There  are,  therefore,  in  the  so-called  mental  sug- 
gestion, two  different  phenomena : 

( 1 )  The  transmission  of  thought  or  of  will,  which 
is  made  from  one  brain  to  another  —  and  it  is  this  that 
it  is  necessary  to  explain,  if  mental  suggestion  can  be 
explained;  in  the  present  state  of  science,  unfortunately, 
it  is  inexplicable.^ 

(2)  Suggestion  proper,  which  consists  in  the  influ- 
ence of  an  idea  upon  the  brain  which  has  received  it 
(however  it  may  have  entered  this  brain:  by  hearing, 
sight,  or  in  any  other  way) . 

In  order  to  connect  mental  suggestion  with  ordinary 
suggestion,  it  would  be  necessary  to  prove  that  there 
is  no  real  difference  in  the  way  in  which  the  subject 
perceives  the  word  or  the  gesture  of  the  suggestioner 

4  We  are  reminded  of  the  words  of  Professor  Pouchet  (in  Le  Temps, 
August  12,  1893) :  "To  show  that  one  brain,  by  a  sort  of  gravitation, 
acts  at  a  distance  upon  another  brain,  as  the  magnet  upon  a  magnet, 
the  sun  upon  planets,  the  earth  upon  falling  bodies,  is  to  discover  an 
influence,  a  nervous  vibration,  diffusing  itself  without  a  material  con- 
ductor! .  .  .  But  find  this  for  us,  good  people,  show  it  to  us,  and  your 
name  shall  be  greater  in  immortality  than  that  of  Newton.  .  .  ." 


224  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

and  that  in  which  he  perceives  his  unexpressed  thought. 
This  is  what  the  author  of  an  ingenious  study  upon  "  the 
mechanism  of  mental  hypnotic  suggestion "  ^  en- 
deavored to  do. 

After  having  defined  this  suggestion  from  the  idea 
commonly  admitted:  "  The  influence  that  the  thought 
of  the  hypnotist  exerts,  in  a  determined  sense,  either 
upon  the  thought  of  the  hypnotized,  or  upon  the  appari- 
tion in  the  hypnotized  of  somatic  phenomena  of  hyp- 
notic nature,  without  having  the  thought  of  the  hypno- 
tist accompanied  by  phenomena  perceptible  to  the  hyp- 
notized and  serving  him  as  signs  or  indications**  he 
modifies  thus  the  latter  part  of  the  definition,  "  without 
having  the  thought  of  the  hypnotist  accompanied  by 
exterior  signs  of  which  he  had  consciousness  and  which 
were  perceptible  to  the  assistants'* 

That  which  permits  one  to  suppose  that  the  influence 
may  be  accompanied  by  signs  perceptible  to  the  subject 
is,  in  fact,  the  very  hypothesis  which  Dr.  Ruault  de- 
velops. 

In  ordinary  suggestion  the  hypnotist  manifests  his 
thought  by  the  aid  of  words;  in  mental  suggestion  he 
does  not  speak.  But  Dr.  Ruault  assures  us  that  ''  as, 
according  to  all  the  experimenters,  it  is  necessary  that 
the  thought  be  distinct  in  order  that  the  suggestion  may 
fully  succeed/*  he  gives  to  his  thought  the  necessary  dis- 
tinctness by  formulating  it  with  the  aid  of  the  word 
within.  It  is  this  interior  word  which  the  hypnotized 
receives,  thanks  to  his  sensorial  hyperacuteness. 

Dr.  Ruault  recognizes,  however,  that  this  hyper- 
acuteness is  not  one  of  the  constant  characteristics  of 

5  Dr.  Albert  Ruault,  Revue  philosophique. 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    225 

somnambulism,  and  that  physiologists  who  have  at- 
tempted to  measure  the  sensorial  acuteness  of  hypno- 
tized subjects  have  found,  sometimes  an  augmentation, 
sometimes  a  diminution,  in  comparing  it  with  that  of 
the  same  subject  in  the  normal  state. 

It  does  not  matter,  this  scientist  affirms,  that  the 
attentive  somnambulist  has  a  special  aptitude  to  seize 
upon  and  understand  the  signs  of  the  hypnotist,  viz., 
"  the  very  faint  muscular  sounds  of  the  interior  words, 
and  the  visible  movements  of  the  extremely  weak  artic- 
ulation provoked  by  the  motor  images  of  the  words." 
In  this  latter  case,  however.  It  would  be  necessary  to 
suppose  In  the  subject  the  exercise  of  the  sense  of  sight. 
If  his  eyes  are  closed,  and  if  the  hypnotist  turns  his 
back  to  him,  he  must  then  content  himself  with  the 
sounds  which  Inevitably  accompany  the  muscular  move- 
ments necessary  for  Interior  words. 

How  can  the  facts  be  explained? 

Dr.  Ruault  first  disposes  of  all  the  cases  where  the 
subject  Is  In  contact,  however  slight  this  may  be,  with 
the  hypnotist.  In  declaring  that  "  they  have  already  been 
rejected,  as  not  being  mental  suggestion,"  and  even  of 
those  cases  where  the  hypnotist  is  in  the  presence  of  the 
subject,  for  "  they  are  not  considered  fully  proved." 
Now  remains  "  the  supreme  argument,  mental  sug- 
gestion at  a  great  distance." 

But  first  "  it  is  by  no  means  demonstrated  that  facts 
of  this  kind  may  be  safe  from  all  criticism,"  since  the 
author  does  not  find  them  in  absolute  contradiction  to 
the  interpretation  that  he  proposed ;  "  so  long  as  they 
remain  Isolated,  exceptional,  and  more  or  less  doubt- 
ful, one  must  be  confined  to  registering  them  with  the 


226  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

utmost  possible  detail  until  the  state  of  science  per- 
mits the  explanation  to  be  found." 

It  is  evident  that  with  similar  processes  of  dialectic 
one  would  be  able  to  demonstrate  or  to  refute  anything 
that  one  wished.  The  reader  has  only  to  review  all 
the  facts  that  we  have  enumerated,  in  order  to  see  that 
the  proposed  interpretation  falls  short  for  the  greater 
part  of  them.  It  does  not  seem  applicable  even  to  the 
experiments  made  by  Dr.  Ruault.  He  recognizes  that 
his  two  subjects  "  sometimes  felt  the  influence  strongly 
from  one  room  to  another  of  the  same  apartment/' 
and  that  he  had  been  able  to  put  them  to  sleep  thus, 
even  though  really  they  did  not  suspect  his  presence. 
He  says: 

One  of  these  persons  felt  me,  sometimes  very  forcibly,  when 
I  willed  it  strongly,  although  I  was  in  the  street  and  he  in  the 
mezzanine  of  the  Rue  Cujas.  One  evening  when,  accompanied 
by  a  friend,  I  left  the  house  of  one  of  these  subjects,  a  medical 
student,  upon  whom  I  had  made  some  experiments  in  hypno- 
tism, I  tried,  from  the  staircase  of  the  lower  floor,  to  suggest 
to  him  mentally  complete  paraplegia;  and  it  seemed  to  me 
that  my  mental  suggestion  had  reached  him.  I  had  not  in  any 
way  thought  of  attempting  the  experiment  when  I  was  near 
him ;  the  idea  did  not  come  to  me  until  the  very  moment  I  put 
it  into  execution.  Immediately  after  my  attempt  was  made,  I 
went  up  to  my  somnambulist  to  see  If  the  suggestion  had  suc- 
ceeded. I  found  him  seated  In  an  arm-chair,  complaining  that 
his  legs  were  numb  and  he  could  not  raise  them. 

Undoubtedly,  Dr.  Ruault  himself  was  persuaded  that 
his  subject  had  understood,  through  the  doors  of  his 
apartment  and  from  one  floor  to  another,  "  the  very 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    227 

faint  muscular  sounds  of  the  interior  word  "  which 
accompanied  this  thought,  "/  will  that  you  present 
the  symptoms  of  complete  paraplegia/'  But  it  would 
be  difficult  to  persuade  others  of  this. 

For  those  who,  as  the  members  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  consider  the  facts  of  mental  sug- 
gestion as  being  of  the  same  order  as  the  facts  of  telep- 
athy, it  is  not  possible  to  explain  them  by  the  sole 
hyperacuteness  of  the  ordinary  instruments  of  sensible 
perception.  We  are  here  in  the  presence  of  an  orig- 
inal phenomenon,  a  sort  of  wireless  telegraphy  or 
telephony  which  puts  two  brains  into  communication, 
in  conditions  still  unknown.  Even  these  comparisons, 
these  expressions  borrowed  from  physics  and  physiol- 
ogy, are  repugnant  to  the  partizans  of  the  telepathic 
interpretation :  the  phenomenon,  as  we  know  it,  belongs 
to  pure  psychology. 

A  certain  thought  is  in  the  mind  of  one  person.  A, 
A  thought  identical  to  that,  and  certainly  provoked  by 
it,  is  born  at  the  same  moment  in  the  mind  of  another 
person,  B,  even  though  these  two  persons  had  not  been 
able  to  exchange  their  thoughts  by  ordinary  means. 
All  of  this  has  many  times  been  established,  and  all  of 
it  we  must  admit. 

What  is  it  that  happens  in  the  brains  of  the  two  peo- 
ple, and  in  the  space  which  separates  them? 

We  do  not  know,  say  the  partizans  of  the  telepathic 
interpretation,  and  furthermore  we  need  not  trouble 
about  It.  We  must  consider  the  fact  of  the  communi- 
cation of  thought  a  primary  fact,  certain  although  In- 
explicable, and  use  it  boldly  as  a  principle  of  explanation 
for  all  the  facts  it  is  possible  to  ally  with  it. 


228    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

Any  such  position  appears  to  us  to  be  scientifically  un- 
tenable. If  it  is  the  soul,  as  such,  which,  independently 
of  the  brain  and  nervous  system,  independently  of  all 
physiological  and  physical  mechanism,  can  thus  make 
its  action  felt  at  a  distance,  we  can  easily  establish  the 
fact;  but  this  fact,  without  analogy  to  the  rest  of  nature, 
escapes  all  scientific  explanation,  all  experimental  re- 
search. For  explanation  and  experimentation  are  pos- 
sible, according  to  Claude  Bernard,  only  where  the 
phenomena  are  absolutely  determined  in  their  natural 
conditions.  To  attribute  to  thought  and  will  the  mys- 
tic property  of  communication  from  one  mind  to  an- 
other without  any  physical  connection  between  the 
brains  where  they  have  their  natural  conditions,  is  to 
place  ourselves  definitely  beyond  the  realm  of  science. 

But  any  such  conception  is  no  more  defendable  philo- 
sophically. In  fact,  if  we  regard  it  from  the  philosoph- 
ical point  of  view,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  the  soul  which  can  justify  it. 

From  the  fact  that  a  certain  thought  is  in  me  —  for 
instance,  the  principle  of  a  reasoning  —  it  can  be  con- 
ceived that  another  thought  must  follow  —  for  in- 
stance, the  conclusion  of  this  reasoning;  for  there  is 
here  no  interval,  no  space.  But  from  the  fact  that  a 
certain  thought  is  produced  in  my  brain,  how  does  it 
follow  that  another  thought  (identical  or  not  in  nature) 
is  produced  in  some  other  brain,  separated  from  mine 
by  all  sorts  of  intermediaries?  Since  it  is  a  question 
of  space,  we  leave  the  immaterial  sphere  of  conscious- 
ness to  fall  into  the  realm  of  matter  and  movement;  the 
mechanical  explanation  of  the  phenomena,  and  their 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    229 

experimental  determination,  become  immediately  pos- 
sible and  necessary. 

It  is,  in  fact,  a  postulate  of  the  scientific  method  uni- 
versally admitted  by  all  modern  scientists  and  philos- 
ophers, since  Descartes,  that  if  we  wish  to  study 
scientifically  any  phenomenon  whatsoever  —  physical 
or  mental  —  we  must  endeavor  to  connect  it  with 
physical  conditions :  that  is  to  say,  to  its  physical  ante- 
cedents or  concomitants.  This  postulate,  purely  scien- 
tific, does  not  imply  any  hypothesis,  any  metaphysical 
system,  materialism,  monism,  or  other.  It  is  possible, 
however,  that  our  effort  to  connect  certain  phenomena 
with  physical  conditions  may  be  condemned  never  to 
end  practically;  but  it  is  experimentation  which  will 
prove  this  to  us,  and  we  must  not  suppose  it  a  priori, 
for  this  would  be  to  shut  out  from  ourselves  in  advance 
all  possibility  of  scientific  investigation. 

Therefore,  we  cannot  stop  at  the  mere  affirmation  of 
the  communication  of  two  minds,  in  the  phenomenon  of 
the  transmission  of  thought.  Willingly  or  unwillingly, 
it  is  necessary  to  admit  also  the  intercommunication  of 
two  brains.  But,  once  entering  upon  this  path,  is  it 
possible  for  us  not  to  keep  on  to  the  end :  to  the  inter- 
communication of  two  nervous  systems  —  in  other 
words,  to  animal  magnetism? 

A  characteristic  of  all  the  diapsychic  phenomena  is 
that  they  imply  the  possibility  for  a  brain  to  radiate  at 
a  distance,  not,  unquestionably,  the  will  or  the  thought, 
but  an  influence  capable  of  transmitting  or  reproducing 
the  will  and  the  thought,  as  electric  currents  sent  along 
the  telegraphic  wires  transmit  —  or,  rather,  reproduce 


230     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

—  the  despatch  at  the  other  end.  If  the  brain  of  the 
operator  sends  nothing  to  the  brain  of  the  subject,  and 
if  the  intermediary  space  contains  nothing  which  puts 
them  into  relation  with  each  other,  this  communication 
of  two  consciousnesses  is  a  supernatural,  superscientific 
phenomenon,  which  is  not  connected  with  any  other  in 
our  entire  experience,  and  of  which  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  abandon  all  efforts  to  find  an  explanation. 

But  when  the  members  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  oppose  among  themselves  the  two  hypotheses 
of  effluence  and  thought-transference  —  that  is  to  say, 
animal  magnetism  and  telepathy  —  are  they  not 
blinded  by  an  illusion  produced  by  the  words?  Is  it 
not  evident  that  thought-transference  is  only  a  partic- 
ular form  of  effluence  —  a  cerebral  and  mental  efflu- 
ence, necessarily  more  complicated  and  obscure  than 
the  simple  nervous  and  vital  effluence? 

There  is  no  serious  reason  for  believing  that  the 
power  to  influence  at  a  distance  appertains  exclusively, 
in  the  organism,  to  the  brain  considered  in  its  functional 
unity  as  the  organ  of  will  and  thought.  Undoubtedly, 
the  brain  has,  in  man,  a  preponderating  and  unique  role. 
It  is  the  organ  of  conscious  life,  of  intellectual  and 
moral  life.  However,  its  psychological  functions  (if 
they  may  be  called  this)  have  evidently  for  their  basis 
and  their  condition  the  physiological  properties  of  the 
elements  which  compose  It. 

Neither  will  nor  sensations  could  exist  If  the  nerve 
fibers  did  not  possess  the  property  of  conducting  move- 
ment, If  the  nerve  centers  did  not  possess  that  of  re- 
ceiving it  and  of  reflecting  it  by  transforming  it. 

These  properties,  however,  are  not  peculiar  to  a  few 


COMMUNICATION  OF  THOUGHT    231 

elements  of  the  brain;  they  are  common  to  all  the  ele- 
ments of  the  brain ;  they  are  the  general  properties  of 
the  neurons. 

Therefore,  if  the  will  and  the  thought  can  be  com- 
municated from  one  brain  to  another,  all  the  analogies 
not  only  authorize  us  but  even  oblige  us  to  see  in  this 
phenomenon  only  a  particular  consequence  of  some 
general  property  of  the  cerebral  and  nervous  cells  ante- 
cedent, so  to  speak,  to  the  will  and  the  thought.  And 
in  what  could  this  property  consist,  if  not  in  a  sort  of 
radiation  or  expansion  of  the  nervous  force,  which  the 
phenomena  of  heat,  light,  and  electricity  render  it  com- 
paratively easy  for  us  to  conceive? 

The  hypothesis  which  links  diapsychism  to  animal 
magnetism  appears  to  us,  therefore,  to  be  more  favor- 
able than  the  hypothesis  contrary  to  the  investigations 
of  science,  and  to  be  more  in  conformity  with  the 
scientific  method. 

But  when  it  is  a  question  to  know,  in  each  particular 
case,  whether  we  have  to  deal  with  a  fact  of  animal 
magnetism  {nervous  biactinism)  or  of  diapsychism 
{cerebral  biactinism),  we  should  not  theorize,  however 
ingenious  and  seductively  easy  this  may  be;  it  is  ex- 
perimentation alone  which  can  lead  us  to  the  truth. 


CHAPTER  XI 

CLAIRVOYANCE,    OR   "  METAGNOMY 


Under  the  denomination  of  clairvoyance  a  large 
number  of  facts  may  be  brought  together.  They  might 
be  different  in  nature,  but  all  would  be  extremely  ob- 
scure, not  to  say  incomprehensible,  and  of  an  appear- 
ance even  more  marvelous  than  those  which  we  studied 
in  the  preceding  chapter  and  with  which  they  have  so 
great  an  affinity  that  it  is  sometimes  very  difficult  to 
distinguish  one  from  the  other. 

These  facts,  which  were  known  long  ago,  especially 
by  the  early  adepts  in  animal  magnetism,  are  to-day 
attracting  the  world-wide  attention  of  the  savants. 
They  have  been  too  long  denied  a  hearing,  owing  to 
their  unscrupulous  exploitation  by  charlatans  at  the 
expense  of  the  credulous  public. 

Perhaps  the  name  clairvoyance  (as  also  the  term 
double  sight  or  second  sight)  is  not  very  aptly  chosen, 
to  apply  equally  well  to  all  the  forms  of  the  phenome- 
non ;  for  it  is  not  always  a  question  of  vision.  In  some 
cases  it  would  appear  to  be  analogous  to  a  perception 
of  hearing  (from  which  we  have  the  name  clair audience 
to  designate  one  of  its  forms)  ;  in  others,  to  that  of 
touch. 

To  overcome  this  difficulty  we  should  have  a  word 
that  would  signify,  in  a  general  way:     ** Knowledge 

232 


CLAIRVOYANCE  233 

obtained  by  certain  individuals,  in  certain  particular 
states,  which  does  not  seem  to  be  explicable  by  the  exer- 
cise of  our  normal  senses  and  intellectual  faculties" 

If  I  did  not  fear  to  Incur  once  more  the  double  re- 
proach of  barbarism  and  pedantism,  to  which  every 
inventor  of  technical  words  drawn  from  the  Greek  ex- 
poses himself,  I  should  propose,  In  order  to  designate 
the  phenomenon  In  the  most  general  way,  the  word 
metagnomy  (from  beyond,  and  knowledge).  This 
word,  therefore,  signifies  approximately:  ** Knowl- 
edge of  things  situated  beyond  those  we  can  normally 
know;  supernormal  knowledge," 

The  first  question  to  arise  in  the  study  of  clairvoy- 
ance, or  "  metagnomy,"  is  this : 

Does  a  supernormal  knowledge  of  this  kind  really 
exist? 

That  Is  a  question  of  fact,  which  can  be  answered 
only  by  enumerating  the  facts.  But  as  these  facts  are 
so  numerous  and,  in  appearance  at  least,  so  diverse, 
so  different  from  one  another,  our  first  question  must 
be  changed  Into  another  question : 

What  are  the  different  forms  of  this  supernormal 
knowledge? 

II 

Our  normal  knowledge  may  bear  ( i )  upon  facts  or 
objects  actually  existing  {perception)  ;  (2)  upon  past 
events  {memory)  ;  (3)  upon  future  events  {previ- 
sion) ;  or  (4)  upon  the  rapports,  the  general  truths, 
independent  of  time,  such  as,  for  example,  scientific 
laws  (generalization,  reasoning,  reason  proper). 

If  we  apply  this  classification  to  supernormal  knowl- 


234    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

edge,  it  seems  that  we  can,  at  least  temporarily,  well 
omit  the  last  of  these  categories,  because  the  facts  that 
could  be  classified  under  this  fourth  heading  are  exceed- 
ingly rare,  and  especially  because  it  is  very  difficult  to 
distinguish  them  from  normal  facts  of  the  same  kind. 
On  the  one  hand,  mediums,  even  those  with  exceptional 
powers  of  clairvoyance,  have  never  or  seldom  revealed 
to  humanity  any  scientific  truths  of  importance.  On 
the  other  hand,  who  can  say  where  the  normal  and 
the  supernormal  begin  and  where  they  end,  in  the  intui- 
tions of  men  of  genius?  In  studying  the  metagnomic 
phenomena,  therefore,  we  can  limit  ourselves  to  the 
first  three  kinds  of  knowledge:  perception,  memory, 
and  prevision. 

With  regard  to  perception.  It  seems  that  a  special 
sense  —  which  might  be  called  a  sixth  sense  —  would 
appear  to  be  developed  in  certain  individuals,  in  certain 
particular  circumstances,  in  order  to  put  them  en  rap- 
port with  the  radiations  or  emanations  of  things  in- 
accessible to  our  ordinary  senses,  and  to  permit  the 
intelligence  of  these  subjects  or  mediums  thus  to  have 
information  sui  generis,  the  origin  of  which  is  entirely 
unknown  to  us. 

Is  there  not  something  analogous  to  this  In  the 
extraordinary  acuteness  of  the  dog's  sense  of  smell, 
or  in  its  sense  of  locality  or  orientation?  We  are 
forced  to  believe  the  existence  of  this  sense  in  a  large 
number  of  animals,  without  in  any  way  being  able  to 
understand  Its  nature. 

It  Is  exceedingly  difficult  to  classify  the  many  and 
varied  forms  of  metagnomic  perception ;  for  the  differ- 
ences between  them  are  often  imperceptible,  and  we  are 


CLAIRVOYANCE  235 

not  unaware  of  the  strongly  arbitrary  and  artificial 
divisions  which  we  are  obliged  to  introduce  in  the  midst 
of  facts  really  indivisible,  in  order  to  facihtate  their 
study. 

All  psychological  treatises  teach  the  distinction  be- 
tween perception  by  consciousness  (inner  perception  or 
intimate  sense,  having  for  its  object  the  psychological 
life  of  the  **self*^)  and  perception  by  the  senses  (ex- 
terior perception,  having  for  its  object  the  world  of 
material  things)  ;  in  other  words,  subjective  perception 
and  objective  perception. 

Similarly,  although  not  so  precisely,  we  could  distin- 
guish two  varieties  of  clairvoyant  or  metagnomic  per- 
ception, the  first  being  exercised  especially  in  the  inner 
world  of  consciousness,  the  second  belonging  rather  to 
the  exterior  world  of  objects  and  physical  events. 

It  is  undoubtedly  necessary  to  attribute  to  the  former 
that  strange  faculty  which  certain  subjects  possess  of 
being  able  to  perceive  the  condition  of  their  internal 
organs,  with  such  distinctness  as  to  enable  them  to  de- 
scribe this  condition  precisely.  This  faculty  was  recog- 
nized by  the  early  mesmerists,  and  afterward  admitted 
and  studied  by  Dr.  Sollier  under  the  name  of  autoscopy. 
It  was  demonstrated  in  the  case  of  a  patient  who,  hav- 
ing swallowed  a  pin  two  months  previously,  was  able, 
in  a  state  of  hypnosis,  to  follow  it  in  all  the  stages  of 
its  voyage  through  the  intestines. 

The  field  of  vision  of  this  faculty  is  not  necessarily 
limited  to  the  organism  of  the  one  who  possesses  it;  it 
can  be  exercised  also  upon  the  organism  of  another 
person.  Many  somnambulists,  according  to  the  early 
mesmerists,  perceived  the  condition  of  the  organs  of 


236    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

persons  who  were  put  en  rapport  with  them,  and  ex- 
perienced, by  a  sort  of  inexplicable  sympathy,  the  same 
internal  organic  sensations.  There  was  a  co-penetra- 
tion of  two  sensibilities  and  of  two  consciousnesses. 
We  studied  it  in  the  preceding  chapter  under  the  name 
of  diapsychism.  It  could  better  be  said  that  diapsy- 
chlsm  is  a  particular  form  of  metagnomy,  since  it  also 
is  "  a  knowledge  obtained  by  certain  individuals,  in  cer- 
tain particular  states,  which  is  not  explicable  by  the 
exercise  of  our  normal  senses  and  intellectual  faculties." 

It  is  a  fact  of  the  same  kind  which  must  really  con- 
stitute what  has  been  called  the  magnetic  rapport. 
The  hypnotized  subject,  who  is  insensible  to  all  other 
persons,  is  particularly  sensible  to  the  influence  of  his 
hypnotizer.  When  any  one  else  speaks  to  him,  he 
does  not  understand  nor  answer.  He  understands  and 
answers  when  the  hypnotizer  speaks  to  him;  and  he 
understands  and  answers  equally  well  all  other  persons 
who  are  put  en  rapport  with  the  hypnotizer  by  contact. 
He  perceives,  then,  in  some  way  unknown  to  us,  the 
contacts  felt  by  the  hypnotizer. 

It  is  not  only  the  inner  sensations  which  may  thus  be 
perceived :  one  may  perceive  also  phenomena  of  a  more 
purely  psychological  or  subjective  nature  —  ideas,  in- 
tellectual operations,  acts  of  will,  of  taste,  of  habits, 
the  disposition,  innate  or  acquired,  the  temperament, 
the  character.  The  medium  reads  the  thought,  the 
soul,  of  some  one  else,  as  he  would  read  himself. 
Sometimes  it  is  at  the  request  or  with  the  permission 
of  the  other  person  that  he  penetrates  into  the  inner  self 
thus  opened  to  his  gaze.  But  sometimes,  also,  it  is 
spontaneously,  and  unknown  to  the  other  persons,  that 


CLAIRVOYANCE  237 

his  gaze  penetrates  them  and  discovers  secrets  hidden 
in  the  very  depths  of  their  consciousness.  It  is  then  a 
true  divination  of  thought. 

Those  beings  who  are  gifted  with  such  powers  of 
divination  are,  in  the  eyes  of  Dr.  Osty,  prodigies  in 
whom  "  the  brain  has  reached  a  higher  degree  of  sen- 
sibility, when  it  becomes  the  reactive  capable  of  disclos- 
ing what  is  in  the  brains  of  other  men.  They  are  the 
interpreters  that  nature  has  created  between  our  whole 
mind  and  our  consciousness.  They  are  the  mirrors  be- 
fore which  our  otherwise  unconscious  thoughts  are  seen 
and  comprehended." 

Ill 

The  objective  or  physical  form  of  metagnomic  per- 
ception, whose  affinities  with  diapsychism  (thought- 
transference)  are  less  visible,  also  presents  a  large  num- 
ber of  varieties. 

First,  let  us  set  aside  those  which  correspond  to  the 
phenomena  we  have  brought  together  under  the  name 
of  hyloscopy,  the  most  common  of  which  are  the  influ- 
ences exercised  by  springs,  currents  of  water,  metals, 
etc.,  upon  the  special  sensibility  of  pendulum-  and  rod- 
diviners. 

If  we  consider  rather  the  perceptions  relevant  to  the 
general  sensibility  common  to  the  entire  human  race, 
the  first  fact  to  note  is  that  of  the  exteriorization  of  the 
sensitiveness,  discovered  by  Colonel  de  Rochas,  but  the 
interpretation  of  which  is  still  generally  contested. 
Instead  of  perceiving  upon  his  own  body  the  contacts, 
pricks,  pinches,  etc.,  that  are  made,  the  subject  feels 
them  at  various  distances,  or  even  in  objects  which 


238    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

have  been  for  a  certain  length  of  time  in  contact  with 
him. 

Related  to  this  fact  is  that  of  reading  through  the 
tips  of  the  fingers.  We  have  analyzed  in  detail  an 
example  of  this  kind  in  Our  Hidden  Forces,^  The 
series  of  experiments  related  there  was,  unfortunately, 
interrupted  by  the  departure  of  the  subject,  Ludovig  S., 
for  the  north  of  France,  where  he  remained  from  1907 
until  19 14.  It  was  only  in  19 14  that  he  returned  to 
Dijon,  where  the  mobilization  had  called  him,  and 
where  he  remained  but  a  very  short  time.  During  his 
stay,  however,  I  managed  to  conduct  some  interesting 
experiments. 

On  December  9,  191 4,  Ludovig  S.  came  to  my  clinic  at  about 
6 :45  in  the  evening,  and  was  very  quickly  put  to  sleep  by  verbal 
suggestion.  I  then  blindfolded  him,  and  turned  on  the  electric 
light  in  a  room  near  my  clinic  (my  secretary's  office).  I  closed 
the  door  of  this  room,  and  left  half  open  that  leading  from  my 
clinic  into  a  small  passage  which  separated  the  two  rooms.  The 
only  illumination  that  I  had,  then,  was  the  light  which  came 
through  the  glass  door  of  my  secretary's  office  into  the  clinic. 
The  subject,  blindfolded,  was  seated  in  the  farthest  and  darkest 
corner  of  the  room. 

I  put  into  his  hands  a  folded  copy  of  a  newspaper,  "  I'lnde- 
pendant,  de  VAuxots  et  du  Morvanl*  the  first  line  of  the  title, 
Vlndependant,  being  printed  in  very  large  characters. 

He  passed  his  fingers  over  the  title;  but  it  seemed  that  his 
special  sensibility  had  disappeared,  or  perhaps  was  singularly 
dulled  during  the  very  long  interruption  of  our  experiments,  for 
he  declared  that  he  could  '*  see  "  nothing. 

I  gave  him  then  a  volume  bound  in  red  morocco,  which  had, 

1  Chapter  XI,  "Apparent  Transposition  of  the  Senses." 


CLAIRVOYANCE  239 

printed  in  relief,  in  the  center  of  its  cover  the  arms  of  the  second 
empire,  and  around  this  the  words:  *' Concours  general  des 
departements."  I  urged  the  subject  to  persist,  and  to  have  con- 
fidence in  himself,  telling  him  that  this  time  the  letters  were 
raised. 

I  heard  him  murmur  the  syllable  "  Con  ** ;  and  then  he 
stopped. 

"  That  is  right,"  I  encouraged  him. 

"  Conseil/'  said  he. 

"  No !     Pay  attention !  "  I  commanded. 

^'^  Conference f*  he  said. 

I  told  him  that  there  were  two  words,  one  following  the 
other ;  and  he  then  deciphered  the  second,  ''  general f'  syllable  by 
syllable.  Next  came  the  inscription  below:  ''des  departe- 
ments'' He  then  returned  to  ''  Concours  "  and  read  it  at  last, 
but  not  without  hesitation  and  much  effort. 

The  title  of  a  novel  by  Frometin,  Dominique,  was  then  read 
very  easily;  and  the  subject  himself  recognized  that  there  was 
something  above  the  title :     "  Eugene  Fromentin,"  he  read. 

Similarly,  he  read  upon  another  volume:  "  U hysteric  et 
la  neurasthenic  chez  le  paysan." 

Then  followed :  ''  Serotherapie  antitetanique/'  For  the  last 
word  there  was  hesitation  upon  the  "  antite**  the  subject  saying 
at  many  attempts,  "  antitera/'  before  he  read  it  correctly. 

The  newspaper  was  again  put  into  his  hands.  This  time  he 
read  without  difficulty:  ''  VIndependant"  \  but  he  went  no 
farther,  declaring  that  there  was  nothing  more  there.  I  saw 
then  that,  the  paper  being  folded,  the  second  line  of  the  title, 
'' de  VAuxois  et  du  Morvan**  was  under  the  fold.  But,  al- 
though printed  in  very  small  characters,  he  read  it  as  easily  as 
the  rest  when  it  was  put  under  his  fingers. 

An  old  photograph,  of  somewhat  large  size,  was  then  given 
to  him ;  and  he  asked  me  if  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  "  see  " 
it.     When  I  answered  in  the  affirmative,  he  told  me  that  it 


240  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

was  my  portrait,  and  I  was  shown  in  profile  —  which  was  quite 
correct. 

A  second  photograph,  smaller  in  size,  and  in  medallion  form, 
was  given  to  him.  Once  more  he  asked  if  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  see  it;  and  when  I  answered  as  before,  he  said:  "  It  is 
you,  but  in  another  pose:  turned  almost  full-face,  and  taken 
from  the  other  side."     This  equally  was  true. 

Proceeding  always  in  the  same  direction,  we  find  the 
fact  of  sight  through  opaque  bodies,  many  times  de- 
scribed by  the  early  mesmerists,  especially  by  W.  Greg- 
ory. Certain  of  our  contemporaries  believe  they  ex- 
plain this  phenomenon  by  connecting  It  with  X-rays. 
At  least,  the  following  despatch  from  New  York  to  the 
Daily  Chronicle  appeared  in  Le  Matin,  in  March, 
1913: 

A  little  girl,  ten  years  old,  named  Beulah  Miller,  possesses, 
according  to  Dr.  John  Quackenbos,  a  member  of  the  Academy 
of  Medicine  who  examined  her  thoroughly,  an  X-ray  vision. 
She  can  see  through  opaque  bodies ;  and  had  no  difficulty,  during 
the  experiments,  in  telling  what  the  assistants  had  in  their 
pockets,  in  reading  a  certain  page  of  a  closed  book,  and  in  de- 
scribing objects  placed  in  closed  boxes. 

Here  are  some  details  upon  these  facts  reported  by 
W.  Gregory: 

The  experiments  were  made  by  Major  Buckley,  with 
persons  whom  he  had  put  Into  a  state  of  clairvoyance, 
and  who  could.  In  this  state,  decipher  written  mottoes 
enclosed  In  nutshells.  The  statistics  upon  this  subject 
are  very  curious.  Out  of  eighty-nine  persons  made 
clairvoyant  In  the  waking  state,  forty-four  were  capable 
of  reading  in  this  way.     In  a  state  of  hypnotic  sleep, 


CLAIRVOYANCE  241 

the  number  of  readers  was  raised  to  one  hundred  and 
forty-eight.  The  written  mottoes  contained  in  four 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty  nutshells  have  been 
read;  and  about  thirty-six  thousand  words  understood, 

r  In  a  small  number  of  cases  they  were  deciphered  by 
thought-reading,  the  persons  who  had  put  them  in  the 
shells  being  present;  but  in  the  majority  of  cases  the 
words  were  not  known  to  any  of  the  assistants,  and, 

!  consequently,  they  had  to  be  read  by  direct  clairvoy- 
ance.    Every  precaution  was  taken.     The  nuts  enclos- 

j  ing  the  written  mottoes  had  been  purchased  in  forty 

I  different  stores,  and  had  been  sealed  until  the  moment 

Vof  the  reading. 

The  following  case  will  give  a  more  precise  idea  of 
this  experiment : 

Sir  Wiltshire  had  carried  away  with  him  a  *'  nest  of  boxes  " 
belonging  to  Major  Buckley,  and  he  had  placed  in  the  innermost 
box  a  small  piece  of  paper  upon  which  he  had  written  a  word. 
A  few  days  later  he  brought  back  the  boxes,  with  the  paper 
sealed  inside,  and  asked  one  of  Major  Buckley *s  clairvoyants  to 
read  the  word.  The  Major  made  a  few  passes  over  the  boxes; 
and  the  clairvoyant  said  that  she  saw  the  word  "  Concert." 

Sir  Wiltshire  declared  that  the  first  and  last  letters  were 
right,  but  that  the  word  was  different. 

She  persisted,  however,  that  the  word  was  "Concert";  and 
then  he  told  her  that  the  word  was  "  Correct." 

In  opening  the  boxes,  it  was  found  that  the  word  actually  was 
"  Concertr 

"  This  case,"  said  W.  Gregory,  "  is  very  remark- 
able; for  if  the  clairvoyant  had  read  the  word  by 
thought-reading,  she  would  have  read  it  according  to 


242  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

Sir  Wiltshire's  belief.  He  either  had  had  the  inten- 
tion of  writing  *  Correct,'  or  else  in  the  interval  had 
forgotten  that  he  had  written  '  Concert,'  for  he  cer- 
tainly believed  that  the  word  was  '  Correct.'  " 

Let  us  go  a  step  farther  and  we  find  ourselves  in  the 
presence  of  the  phenomenon  of  vision  at  a  distance, 
which  is  generally  called  second  sight  or  lucidity. 
With  this,  it  seems  that  space  does  not  exist,  and  that 
one  can  perceive  in  an  instant  what  is  happening  in 
places  very  far  distant:  a  sort  of  teleopsy,  natural  even 
though  inexplicable,  a  phenomenon  comparable  in  its 
nature  to  wireless  telegraphy  or  telephony.  The 
books  of  the  early  mesmerists  abound  in  descriptions 
of  facts  of  this  order. 

We  quote  from  an  article  in  the  Revue  philosophique 
(1889)  upon  the  observations  of  Dr.  Dufay,  of  Blois, 
in  his  experiments  with  a  young  servant,  who  presented 
the  phenomenon  of  second  sight  in  the  highest  degree. 

When  Dr.  Dufay's  friend,  Dr.  Girault,  was  invited 
by  a  relative,  Madame  D.,  to  witness  the  phenomena 
of  clairvoyance  exhibited  by  her  young  servant  Marie, 
Dr.  Dufay  had  asked  to  be  permitted  to  arrange  the 
program  of  the  seance,  by  wrapping  up  many  small  ob- 
jects, in  a  way  that  would  conceal  their  nature,  and  so 
that  he  might  not  he  able  to  know  one  from  the  other 
himself.  These  small  packages  were  to  be  given  to 
the  somnambulist,  and  she  had  to  discover  by  clairvoy- 
ance what  each  contained.  The  matter  was  arranged, 
and  the  day  fixed. 

This  is  Dr.  Dufay's  description  of  the  seance: 

I  laid  aside  a  few  objects  that  were  not  in  ordinary  usage, 


CLAIRVOYANCE  243 

SO  that  chance  guessing  might  be  eliminated,  when  there  reached 
me  from  Algeria  a  letter  from  the  chief  of  a  battalion  of  in- 
fantry, whom  I  had  known  in  the  garrison  at  Blois.  The 
commandant  told  me  many  episodes  of  his  life  in  the  desert, 
and  spoke  especially  of  his  health,  which  had  become  very  poor. 
He  had  slept  in  a  tent  during  the  rainy  season,  and  that  had 
developed  in  him,  as  in  most  of  his  comrades,  violent  dysentery. 

I  placed  this  letter  in  an  old  envelope,  without  address  or 
postmark,  and  carefully  sealed  it.  Then  I  put  this  into  a  second 
envelope,  of  a  dark  color,  and  sealed  it  as  the  first  one. 

On  the  appointed  day  I  arrived  at  Madame  D.'s  a  little  late. 
Marie  was  already  asleep;  therefore  she  was  ignorant  of  my 
presence,  knowing  only  that  I  was  expected.  The  ten  or  twelve 
persons  gathered  in  Madame  D.'s  salon  were  astonished  by  the 
somnambulist  having  recognized,  without  mistake,  the  contents 
of  several  packages  prepared  by  them.  I  also  had  prepared 
some  small  packages,  but  I  left  mine  in  my  pocket;  and,  in  order 
to  break  the  monotony  of  the  experiment,  it  occurred  to  me  to 
slip  my  letter  into  the  hand  of  one  of  the  assistants,  motioning 
to  him  to  pass  it  to  Dr.  Girault.  The  doctor  received  it  with- 
out knowing  that  it  had  come  from  me,  and  put  it  into  the 
hands  of  Marie. 

I  did  not  notice  whether  her  eyes  were  open  or  closed ;  but, 
in  a  case  of  this  sort,  it  was  of  little  importance. 

"  What  is  it  that  you  have  in  your  hand?  "  Dr.  Girault  asked 
the  subject. 

"  A  letter." 

"  To  whom  is  it  addressed  ?  " 

"  To  Dr.  Dufay." 

"By  whom?" 

"  By  a  military  man  whom  I  do  not  know." 

"  Of  what  does  this  military  man  speak  in  his  letter  ?  " 

"  He  is  ill.     He  speaks  of  his  illness." 

"  Can  you  tell  what  the  illness  is  ?  " 


244    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

"Oh,  yes!  Very  easily.  It  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  old 
man  of  Mesland,  who  is  not  yet  cured." 

"  Very  good  ...  I  understand  .  .  .  dysentery.  Listen, 
Marie!  I  believe  that  you  would  give  Dr.  Dufay  great  pleas- 
ure if  you  were  to  go  to  see  his  friend,  the  military  man,  so  that 
you  might  bring  back  with  you  some  news  of  him." 

"  Oh,  it  is  too  far!     It  would  be  a  long  trip!  " 

"  Never  mind !     Leave  at  once.     We  will  wait  for  you." 

(After  a  long  silence.)  "  I  cannot  continue  my  journey. 
,  ,  .  There  is  water,  a  great  deal  of  water." 

"And  you  cannot  cross  the  bridge?" 

"  But  there  is  no  bridge !  " 

"There  is  perhaps  a  boat  that  will  take  you  across,  as  be- 
tween Onzain  and  Chaumont." 

(The  Chaumont  bridge  over  the  Loire  had  not  then  been 
built.) 

"  Boats  ...  yes ;  but  this  Loire  frightens  me  ...  a  real 
flood!" 

"  Go  on.     Take  courage  and  embark." 

(A  prolonged  silence,  agitation,  pallor  of  the  face,  a  little 
nausea. ) 

"  Will  you  soon  arrive?  " 

"  I  have  arrived ;  but  I  have  been  very  tired,  and  I  do  not 
see  any  one  on  shore." 

"  Disembark,  and  you  will  find  some  one." 

"  Voila,  voila!  I  see  many  people  .  .  .  nothing  but  women 
in  white.     But,  no !     On  the  contrary,  they  all  have  beards." 

"  All  right !  Go  up  to  them  and  ask  them  to  show  you 
where  you  will  find  the  military  man." 

(After  a  silence.)  "They  do  not  speak  as  we  do.  I  have 
had  to  wait  until  they  called  a  little  boy  with  red  trousers,  who 
has  been  able  to  understand  me.  He  has  conducted  me  him- 
self, and  with  very  quick  steps,  because  we  walk  m  the  sand." 

"  And  the  military  man  ?  " 


CLAIRVOYANCE  245 

"  There  he  is.  He  has  on  red  trousers  and  an  officer's  cap. 
But  he  looks  ill,  and  is  thin !  " 

"  Does  he  tell  you  what  caused  his  illness?  " 

**  Yes ;  he  shows  me  his  bed  —  three  planks  upon  some  stakes, 
above  damp  sand.'* 

"All  right.  Thank  you.  Tell  him  to  go  to  the  hospital, 
where  he  will  have  a  better  bed,  and  you  return  to  Blois." 

I  then  asked  my  confrere  to  open  the  letter  and  read  it.  And 
he  was  not  the  least  satisfied  among  those  in  the  salon ;  for  the 
success  of  the  seance  had  surpassed  all  his  expectations. 

Dr.  Dufay  had  a  new  proof  of  the  clairvoyant  pow- 
ers of  this  young  somnambulist  a  few  days  later.  He 
says: 

Marie,  in  a  state  of  natural  somnambulism,  had  put  her  mis- 
tress's jewels  out  of  their  customary  place,  and  had  been  accused 
of  stealing  them.  I  called  at  the  prison  in  Blois,  where  she  was 
detained,  and,  by  inducing  her  into  artificial  somnambulism, 
awakened  her  memory  and  thus  proved  her  innocence;  but, 
because  of  judiciary  formalities,  she  was  not  immediately  per- 
mitted to  leave  the  prison. 

Early  on  the  following  day  I  was  called  to  investigate  a  sui- 
cide which  had  taken  place.  A  prisoner,  accused  of  murder, 
had  strangled  himself  with  his  necktie,  by  attaching  one  end  of 
it  to  the  foot  of  his  bed,  which  was  fastened  to  the  floor.  Lying 
flat  on  his  stomach,  on  the  floor  of  the  cell,  he  had  had  the 
courage  to  push  himself  backward  with  his  hands  until  the  slip- 
knot of  the  tie  had  produced  the  strangulation.  The  body  was 
already  cold  when  I  arrived,  simultaneously  with  the  attorney 
and  the  magistrate. 

The  attorney,  to  whom  the  magistrate  had  related  the  scene 
with  the  somnambulist  the  preceding  day,  wished  to  see  Marie. 
I  then  suggested  that  I  question  this  young  girl  about  the  crim- 


246  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

inal  who  had  taken  justice  into  his  own  hands;  and  the  magis- 
trate accepted  my  proposition  eagerly.  Accordingly,  I  cut  ofE 
a  small  piece  of  the  necktie,  and  wrapped  it  in  several  sheets  of 
paper,  which  I  tied  up  securely. 

Arriving  at  the  women's  quarters,  we  went  to  the  dormitories, 
and  asked  the  woman  in  charge  to  let  us  use  her  room. 

I  then,  without  speaking  a  single  word  to  Marie,  beckoned 
her  to  follow  us.  After  putting  her  to  sleep  by  a  simple  appli- 
cation of  the  hand  against  her  forehead,  I  took  from  my  pocket 
the  package  I  had  prepared,  and  put  it  into  her  hands.  In- 
stantly, she  jumped  out  of  her  chair,  and  threw  the  package 
away  from  her  with  horror,  crying  angrily  that  she  did  not  want 
"  to  touch  that." 

Now,  it  is  well  known  that  in  prisons,  suicides  are  kept  secret 
as  long  as  possible.  Nothing  had  been  said  in  the  prison,  about 
the  suicide  of  the  criminal,  even  the  attendant  being  ignorant 
of  it. 

"  What  do  you  think  this  package  contains  ?  "  I  asked  Marie, 
when  she  had  calmed  somewhat. 

"  It  is  something  that  has  been  used  to  kill  a  man !  " 

"  A  knife,  perhaps?     Or  a  pistol?  " 

**  No,  no !  A  cor  J  ...  I  see.  ...  It  is  a  necktie  ...  he 
has  hanged  himself.  But  tell  that  man  who  is  behind  me  to  sit 
down,  for  he  is  trembling  so  much  that  his  legs  cannot  support 
him.'*  (It  was  the  magistrate,  who  was  so  strongly  affected  by 
what  he  was  witnessing  that,  actually,  he  was  trembling  vio- 
lently.) 

"  Can  you  tell  me  where  this  has  taken  place  ?  " 

"  Right  here  .  .  .  you  know  very  well.  It  is  a  pris- 
oner .  .  ." 

"  And  why  was  he  in  prison  ?  " 

"  For  having  killed  a  man  who  had  asked  him  to  get  into 
his  cart." 

"How  did  he  kill  him?" 

"Withsigouet/' 


CLAIRVOYANCE  247 

Gouet  is  the  name  of  a  sort  of  hatchet,  with  a  short  handle, 
and  a  broad  and  long  blade  curved  at  the  end  like  the  beak  of 
a  parrakeet.  It  is  an  instrument  in  common  use  in  the  country, 
especially  by  coopers  and  woodcutters.  And  it  was,  actually,  a 
gouet  that  I  had  mentioned  in  my  medico-legal  report  as  being 
probably  the  weapon  with  which  the  murder  had  been  com- 
mitted. 

Up  to  this  point  Marie*s  answers  had  told  us  nothing  that  we 
did  not  already  know.  But  just  then  the  magistrate  drew  me 
aside  and  whispered  in  my  ear  that  the  gouet  had  not  been 
found. 

"  And  what  has  he  done  with  his  gouet?  "  I  asked  the  subject. 

"What  has  he  done?  .  .  .  Listen!  ...  He  has  thrown  it 
into  a  pool.  ...  I  see  it  very  clearly  at  the  bottom  of  the 
water." 

And  she  indicated  the  location  of  this  pool  exactly  enough 
to  enable  the  authorities  to  go  to  it  that  same  day,  accompanied 
by  the  chief  of  police,  and  to  find  the  instrument  of  the  crime. 
We  did  not  know  of  this  result  until  that  evening ;  but  already 
the  skepticism  of  the  magistrates  was  greatly  shaken. 

To  satisfy  their  curiosity,  I  asked  the  woman  in  charge  of 
the  prisoners  to  borrow  from  them  some  small  articles  that 
belonged  intimately  to  them,  such  as  a  ring,  an  earring,  etc., 
and  tie  them  up  into  little  packages,  entirely  disguising  the 
nature  and  shape  of  the  article.  Marie  told  us  exactly  what 
had  caused  the  imprisonment  of  each  of  the  women  to  whom  the 
objects  belonged."  ^ 

Second  sight  is  a  phenomenon  so  extraordinary, 
which  so  violently  shakes  all  admitted  beliefs,  that  I 
may  be  pardoned  if  I  cite  many  examples. 

2  In  the  same  issue  of  the  Revue  philosophique  appears  an  article 
by  the  director  of  the  Normal  School  of  Gueret,  upon  a  young  student 
of  his  school  who  presented  marked  phenomena  of  clairvoyance  during 
periods  of  natural  somnambulism. 


248  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

Here  is  one  that  has  been  told  to  me  recently,  by  the 
man  who  experimented,  and  who,  at  my  request,  has 
written  down  the  incident.  He  is  Mr.  Jean  B.,  school- 
master in  one  of  the  principal  schools  of  Perpignan.  I 
shall  give  his  version  without  changing  anything  except 
the  proper  names,  of  which  I  shall  give  only  the  initials. 

In  the  month  of  August,  1892,  when  I  was  schoolmaster  at 
Ceret,  a  professional  hypnotist  gave  a  performance  of  hypnotism 
in  a  cafe  of  that  village.  The  subject  was  a  young  boy  of 
eighteen,  Raymond  S.,  employed  in  the  barber-shop  of  Antoine  R. 

A  few  days  afterward,  when  I  went  to  this  shop  for  a  shave, 
the  conversation  turned  upon  the  experiments  to  which  young 
Raymond  had  been  submitted.  He  then  suggested  that  I  put 
him  to  sleep.  We  were  all  alone,  his  employer  being  away  on 
military  duty  for  a  period  of  thirteen  days  at  Perpignan. 

I  did  as  the  boy  requested,  and  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  suc- 
ceeding —  a  satisfaction  all  the  greater  because  it  was  th^  first 
time  I  had  ever  tried  to  put  any  one  to  sleep.  Young  Raymond 
was,  however,  a  remarkable  subject,  gifted  with  extreme  sensi- 
bility and  suggestibility.  I  had  no  trouble  in  repeating  with 
him  all  the  experiments  which  I  had  seen  the  professional 
hypnotist  make. 

I  went  then  very  often  to  the  barber-shop,  for  I  was  en- 
thusiastic about  these  experiments. 

One  day  It  occurred  to  me  to  try  the  phenomenon  of  second 
sight.  I  had  read  articles  about  it,  but  they  had  left  me  very 
skeptical.  It  was  on  a  Thursday,  at  about  five  o'clock  In  the 
afternoon.  The  owner  of  the  shop,  Antoine  R.,  had  not  yet 
finished  his  period  of  thirteen  days,  having  been  gone  only  about 
a  week ;  he  was,  therefore,  still  In  Perpignan. 

I  told  Raymond  what  I  Intended  to  try ;  and  he  agreed  read- 
ily, being  as  curious  as  myself  to  know  the  result  of  these  experi- 
ments.    I  at  once  put  him  to  sleep,  and  ordered  him  to  "  see  " 


CLAIRVOYANCE  249 

his  employer.  It  must  have  been,  then,  about  quarter  past  five. 
After  a  few  moments  of  silence,  the  subject  said : 

"  I  see  him." 

"Where?"  I  asked. 

"  He  is  in  a  cafe." 

"Which  one?" 

"  In  the  Cafe  de  la  Mairie." 

"What  is  he  doing?" 

"  He  is  drinking  absinthe." 

"Is  he  all  alone?" 

"  No ;  he  is  with  two  other  comrades." 

"  Do  you  know  them?  ". 

"  No ;  I  do  not  know  them."  Then,  changing  his  mind : 
"  Ah,  yes !     One  of  them  I  have  seen  here,  for  Saint-Ferreol." 

Having  exhausted  the  questions  I  had  to  ask  him  concerning 
Mr.  R.,  I  told  the  subject  to  go  to  his  home;  and  he  said  that 
he  saw  his  mother  attending  to  household  matters,  his  brother 
sitting  in  the  kitchen,  etc. —  in  brief,  mere  banalities.  I  did 
not  insist  further;  for  I  did  not  know  how  I  could  verify  his 
statements.  I  woke  him  then,  and  told  him  all  that  he  had  said 
to  me.  He  was  greatly  astonished ;  for  he  remembered  nothing 
of  it. 

A  few  minutes  afterward,  I  put  him  to  sleep  again,  and  sent 
him  once  more  to  look  for  his  employer. 

"  Do  you  still  see  Mr.  R.?  "  I  asked. 

"  He  is  no  longer  in  the  cafe,"  the  subject  answered. 

"Where  is  he,  then?" 

"  He  is  walking." 

"  Is  he  still  with  his  two  comrades  ?  " 

"  One  of  them  has  left  him." 

"Which  one?" 

"  The  one  who  was  here  for  Saint-Ferreol." 

"  Follow  them  as  they  walk.     Where  are  they  going?  " 

"  I  do  not  know." 

"  Very  well.     Tell  me  as  soon  as  you  know." 


250  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

There  followed  a  silence  of  about  one  minute.  Then,  sud- 
denly, the  subject  exclaimed: 

"  They  are  going  to  have  supper!  " 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  They  are  entering  the  Boule  d'Or" 

I  did  not  persist  any  further,  but  woke  my  subject,  who 
appeared  to  be  very  tired. 

There  now  remained  for  me  to  verify  the  exactness  of  the 
facts  which  he  had  revealed.  I  knew  that  Mr.  R.  would  re- 
turn two  days  later  for  a  twenty-four-hour  permission.  I 
decided  to  wait  for  him  at  the  railway-station,  and  to  ask  him, 
as  diplomatically  as  I  could,  how  he  had  spent  the  time  between 
five  and  six  o'clock  that  Thursday  afternoon.  And  that  I  did. 
On  the  way,  I  said  to  him : 

"  Last  Thursday,  at  about  quarter  past  five,  I  saw  you  at 
Perpignan.  You  were  in  the  Cafe  de  la  Mairie,  drinking  ab- 
sinthe with  two  of  your  friends." 

Mr.  R.,  looking  at  me,  said  simply:  **  Why  did  you  not 
come  over  to  speak  to  me?  We  should  have  been  glad  to  have 
you  with  us." 

"  I  feared  that  I  might  intrude,"  I  answered  him.  "  Besides, 
I  was  in  a  hurry;  I  did  not  have  time." 

"  I  am  sorry.  It  would  have  pleased  me  to  have  you  at  least 
speak  to  me." 

"  By  the  way,"  I  asked  him,  "who  were  your  two  friends? 
Has  not  one  of  them  been  here  in  Ceret?  " 

"  My  comrades  were  F.,  who  comes  from  here,  but  no  longer 
lives  here,  and  Charles  M.,  a  pastry-cook  in  Perpignan." 

"  Which  of  the  two  was  here  for  Saint-Ferreol?  " 

"  Oh,  that  was  my  friend  Charles.  I  had  invited  him  for  the 
fete." 

**  Then  it  was  he  who  had  left  you  when  you  went  for  supper 
with  F.  at  the  Boule  d'Orf' 

At  this  question,  Mr.  R.  looked  at  me  in  astonishment,  ex- 
claiming: 


CLAIRVOYANCE  251 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  You  followed  me,  then  ?  A  few 
moments  ago  you  told  me  that  you  were  in  a  hurry!  " 

I  could  not  keep  from  laughing,  and  so  was  obliged  to  tell 
him  how  I  had  obtained  the  information. 

There  was  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  R.  had  no  idea 
whatever  of  hypnotic  phenomena,  for  he  did  not  believe  me. 

"  You  are  joking !  "  said  he.     **  You  are  making  fun  of  me !  " 

I  tried  very  hard  to  convince  him  that  I  had  learned  in  no 
other  way  how  he  had  passed  his  time ;  but  I  could  not  succeed. 

"  Well,"  I  then  said  to  him,  "  the  essential  thing  for  me  to 
do  now  is  to  make  you  believe  that  what  I  have  told  you  is  true. 
As  for  the  rest,  since  you  are  incredulous,  I  shall  make  you  see, 
one  of  these  days.     I  hope,  then,  that  you  will  be  convinced." 

"  Oh,  if  I  see  it,  I  shall  believe  it,"  he  replied ;  and  we 
separated. 

The  following  Saturday,  Mr.  R.  returned  definitely  to  Ceret, 
his  term  of  thirteen  days  having  expired.  When  I  went  to  his 
shop  that  day,  he  himself  reminded  me  of  my  promise,  and  we 
made  an  appointment  for  Monday  evening,  after  eight  o'clock. 

I  was  careful  not  to  miss  the  appointment.  At  eight  o'clock 
I  arrived  at  the  barber-shop,  and  found,  besides  himself  and 
his  employee  Raymond,  three  other  persons. 

I  put  Raymond  to  sleep,  and  made  him  carry  out  different 
suggestions,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  assistants,  who  had 
never  witnessed  anything  of  the  sort.     Then  I  woke  him. 

In  the  meantime,  Madame  R.  appeared  in  the  doorway  of 
the  shop.  She  stood  for  a  moment,  amazed,  and  then,  address- 
ing her  husband,  without  coming  farther  into  the  room,  she 
said: 

"  Antoine,  you  know  where  I  am  going." 

And  without  another  word  she  left  us. 

Then  an  inspiration  came  to  me. 

"  Does  Raymond  know  where  your  wife  is  going?"  I  asked 
Mr.  R.     "  Or  what  she  is  going  to  do  ?  " 


252  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

"  Certainly  not.  He  knows  nothing  about  it,  for  it  is  a 
matter  between  my  wife  and  myself." 

"  Very  well,"  I  said  to  him  then ;  "  if  your  employee  tells 
you  where  your  wife  is  going  and  what  she  intends  to  do,  will 
you  believe  that  he  was  able  to  tell  me  what  you  did  at  Per- 
pignan  ?  " 

"  Oh,  then  I  shall  no  longer  doubt  you." 

I  put  the  subject  to  sleep  immediately,  and  made  him  sit  in 
an  armchair. 

"  Follow  Madame  R.,"  I  ordered  him.     "  Do  you  see  her?  " 

*'  I  see  her.     She  is  going  down  the  Rue  Saint-Ferreol." 

**  Good!     Follow  her.     Tell  me  what  she  does." 

After  an  instant's  silence,  he  said :     **  She  has  stopped." 

"Where?"  I  asked. 

"  At  the  foot  of  the  street." 

"What  is  she  doing?" 

"  She  is  speaking." 

"With  whom?" 

"  With  a  woman." 

"  Do  you  know  this  woman  ?  " 

"  No ;  I  do  not  know  her." 

"  Do  you  not  know,  then,  what  her  occupation  is  ?  " 

"  Yes.     She  sells  wine." 

"  And  where  does  she  live?  " 

"  On  the  left-hand  side,  in  going  down." 

Then  the  idea  came  to  me,  since  he  saw  the  two  women  talk- 
ing, to  make  him  understand  what  they  were  saying. 

**  Very  well,"  I  said  to  him.  "  Since  they  are  talking,  listen 
to  what  they  are  saying,  and  repeat  it  to  me." 

"  I  cannot  hear  them,"  he  replied. 

"  Listen !  "  I  insisted.     "  You  will  hear." 

"  I  hear  nothing!  "  he  repeated,  this  time  raising  his  voice, 
and  with  a  note  of  irritation. 

"  I  will  you  to  hear !  "  I  ordered. 

Immediately,  the  subject's  face  changed  expression.     We  saw 


CLAIRVOYANCE  253 

that  a  violent  effort  of  his  will  was  being  made,  the  veins  on 
his  forehead  swelled  up;  then,  suddenly,  with  his  whole  body 
tense,  in  a  strange,  jerking  voice,  he  uttered  these  two  words: 

''Argent  .  .  .  Espagne!"     ("Money  .  .  .  Spain!") 

At  that  he  dropped  back  in  the  chair,  as  if  utterly  exhausted. 

I  woke  him  immediately,  a  little  frightened;  and  as  he  re- 
mained as  if  prostrated,  I  had  to  moisten  his  temples  with  a 
towel  —  something  I  had  never  had  to  do  before. 

In  the  meantime,  Madame  R.  returned,  and  came  into  the 
shop.  I  went  to  her  immediately,  before  any  one  had  a  chance 
to  speak  a  word  to  her. 

"  Madame,"  I  said,  **  is  it  true  that  you  have  just  come  from 
the  foot  of  the  Rue  Saint-Ferreol,  where  you  found  a  wine 
merchant  with  whom  you  have  talked  —  of  money  .  .  . 
Spain.  ..." 

Madame  R.  smiled,  and  explained  to  me  at  once: 

"  Yes ;  I  have  just  been  with  Madame  T.  As  I  know  that 
her  husband  must  go  to  Spain  this  week,  I  went  to  ask  him  if 
he  would  take  some  Spanish  coins  that  I  have  at  home." 

(The  circulation  of  Spanish  copper  money  had  for  some  time 
been  prohibited  in  the  department  of  the  Pyrenees-Orientales, 
which  was  literally  flooded  with  it.) 

Telepathy,  so  thoroughly  and  patiently  studied  by 
the  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  has  cer- 
tainly an  affinity  with  all  the  preceding  phenomena,  and 
notably  with  second  sight,  from  which  it  differs,  how- 
ever, In  two  main  characteristics :  ( i )  It  Is  always 
produced  spontaneously;  while  second  sight  Is  nearly 
always  provoked  by  an  experimenter.  (2)  It  empha- 
sizes rather  the  action  of  the  object  perceived;  while 
second  sight  causes  us  to  consider  rather  the  knowU 
edge  manifested  by  the  subject  who  perceives  it.  It 
seems  that  in  telepathy  the  object  goes  to  find  the  seer; 


254  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

while  in  second  sight  the  seer  goes  to  find  the  object. 
But  it  can  well  be  understood  that  in  many  cases  the 
shade  of  difference  between  telepathy  and  second  sight 
is  hard  to  perceive. 

Memory,  or  at  least  knowledge  of  the  past,  can  also 
assume  a  supernormal  appearance.  The  name  psy- 
chometry  has  been  given,  wholly  improperly,  to  this 
faculty  which  certain  mediums  possess  of  retracing  a 
sometimes  long  series  of  past  events,  of  which  they 
have  no  personal  knowledge.  This  may  be  done  in 
the  presence  of  the  individuals  whom  the  events  con- 
cern in  a  more  or  less  direct  way;  or  it  may  be  at  the 
contact  of  objects  having  played  some  role  in  the  events. 
Part  of  these  effects  may,  it  seems,  be  linked  to  divina- 
tion of  thought,  whenever  the  medium  can  read  in  the 
memory  of  the  individuals,  where  the  recollection  of 
the  events  is  retained  in  a  latent  state.  But  the  case 
would  appear  entirely  different,  and  comparable  rather 
to  a  sort  of  second  sight  into  space  or  temporal  telep^ 
athy,  when  the  medium,  under  the  sole  influence  of  an 
object,  or  of  the  place  in  which  he  may  be,  is  mentally 
transported  into  the  past  and  takes  part  in  events  which 
happened  long  before.  This  was  the  experience  of 
two  English  women  who,  visiting  Versailles  in  1901, 
*'  saw  "  the  Petit  Trianon  as  it  was  in  the  time  of 
Marie- Antoinette. 

The  future  appears  undetermined  to  us,  at  least  so 
far  as  it  depends  upon  our  will;  but  can  it,  also,  be  the 
object  of  a  sort  of  immediate  vision?  Can  the  future 
become  the  present  in  the  mind  of  the  medium? 

That  is  a  formidable  question,  from  the  philosophi- 
cal and  moral  viewpoints;  for  the  question  of  our  free 


CLAIRVOYANCE  255 

will  and  our  moral  responsibility  are  themselves  in- 
volved. 

One  may  find  many  examples  of  prevision  and  pre- 
monition, which  are  inexplicable  by  the  normal  faculties 
of  induction  and  are  verified  by  later  events.  It  will 
be  sufficient  to  cite  two  cases : 

One  is  that  of  Dr.  Geley,  of  Annecy,  who  in  1894 
was  a  medical  student  at  Lyon.  On  the  27th  of  June, 
at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  while  working  in  his 
room  with  a  comrade,  he  was  suddenly  distracted  from 
his  work  by  this  obsessing  thought:  "  M.  Casimir- 
Perier  is  elected  President  of  the  Republic  by  451 
votes."  (The  electoral  Congress  assembled  at  mid- 
day, and  the  news  was  not  known  in  Lyon  until  that 
evening.) 

The  other  case  is  that  which  Dr.  Osty  reports  thus 
in  his  book.  Lucidity  and  Intuition,  as  related  by  the 
seer  herself: 

A  year  ago  I  made  this  prediction  to  a  man  who  came  to 
consult  me  for  the  first  time:  "  I  see  you  upon  the  point  of 
departing  for  a  voyage  across  the  seas  ...  to  America,  prob- 
ably. I  see  you  in  the  steamer,  sad  and  alone;  but  you  will 
not  leave  until  later,  after  many  boats  have  left  for  the  same 
destination  the  port  where  you  will  embark." 

The  gentleman  answered  me  as  follows :  *'  I  actually  am  on 
the  point  of  leaving  France  for  America;  so  I  admire  your 
clairvoyant  powers.  But  you  have  told  me  two  things  that  are 
altogether  improbable.  One  is  that  I  do  not  take  the  first 
steamer.  I  have  my  ticket  in  my  pocket,  and  everything  is 
arranged  that  I  leave  the  day  after  to-morrow.  The  second  is 
that  you  see  me  sad  and  alone.  I  shall  have  my  wife  with  me ; 
and  if  anything  should  possibly  occur  to  keep  her  in  France,  my 
trip  would  be  canceled." 


256    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

Yesterday  this  gentleman  returned  to  me.  "  Your  prophecy 
was  only  too  well  fulfilled,"  he  said.  "  The  day  after  I  came 
here  to  consult  you,  my  wife  was  taken  ill  with  pneumonia,  and 
died  a  few  days  later.  Then,  left  alone,  I  quitted  France;  and 
I  was,  as  you  said,  a  passenger  on  the  steamer,  sad  and  alone." 

IV 

Let  US  review  the  principal  circumstances  or  condi- 
tions in  which  clairvoyance,  or  metagnomy,  is  mani- 
fested under  one  or  the  other  of  its  different  forms. 

Even  though  it  appears  sometimes,  abruptly  and 
spontaneously,  in  the  waking  state,  without  the  ordinary 
equilibrium  of  the  mental  and  physiological  faculties 
appearing  in  the  least  changed  (especially  in  the  case 
of  telepathy) ,  it  seems  to  have  some  special  liaison  with 
particular  states  of  the  nervous  system  more  or  less 
analogous  to  sleep,  hypnosis,  ecstasy,  trance,  etc.,  or 
even  with  ordinary  sleep. 

Popular  belief  attributes  a  prophetic  significance  to 
certain  dreams.  In  Cicero,  for  instance,  there  is  the 
dream  of  that  Arcadian  who  saw  his  friend  first  men- 
aced with  death,  then  assassinated,  and  reached  the 
gates  of  the  town  in  time  to  stop  the  cart  in  which  the 
murderers  carried  the  body  hidden  under  a  heap  of 
dung. 

But  it  is  especially  in  the  somnambulistic  state,  nat- 
ural or  provoked,  that  metagnomic  manifestations 
occur  most  often.  Very  often  clairvoyance  is  revealed 
during  an  access  of  natural  somnambulism ;  and  the  in- 
dividual in  whom  this  faculty  appears  spontaneously 
is  then  brought  to  develop  it  by  means  of  artificial  som- 
nambulistic processes. 


CLAIRVOYANCE  257 

This,  we  believe,  was  the  case  of  the  famous  som- 
nambulist Alexis,  who  was  worth  being  studied  with  the 
greatest  care,  without  the  unfortunate  prejudiced  atti- 
tude which  scientists  manifest  in  considering  all  phe- 
nomena of  this  kind  as  being  unworthy  of  their  atten- 
tion. 

A  more  recent  case  was  that  observed  by  Dr.  Ter- 
rien  and  presented  by  him  in  a  communication  made  to 
the  Society  of  Medicine,  of  Nantes,  during  19 14.  A 
young  girl,  fourteen  years  old,  while  doing  some  sew- 
ing for  him,  went  to  sleep  spontaneously  and  began 
to  recount  all  the  doctor's  actions  at  that  moment.  He 
had  left  with  the  intention  of  visiting  one  patient  only, 
and  had  been  delayed  by  three  other,  wholly  unex- 
pected, visits.  "  She  gave,"  said  a  witness,  *'  the  rea- 
sons for  the  departure  from  his  original  intention,  the 
supplementary  visits,  the  names  of  the  patients,  etc., 
without  omitting  the  detail  that  a  cultivator  obstructed 
the  doctor's  way,  and  he  had  to  stop  on  the  road,  thus 
delaying  his  return." 

Often,  also,  it  is  the  mesmerist  or  hypnotist  who  in 
some  way  evokes  the  metagnomic  faculty,  in  giving  to 
the  sleeping  subject  the  imperative  suggestion  to  see  a 
certain  person  or  a  certain  object.  But  in  order  to 
have  the  idea  of  making  a  suggestion  of  this  kind,  it  is 
evidently  necessary  to  know,  or  at  least  to  believe,  that 
metagnomy  is  possible.  It  is  for  want  of  this  knowl- 
edge or  this  belief  that  experimenters  imbued  with  the 
doctrines  of  official  science  pass  right  by  the  side  of  this 
phenomenon  without  seeing  it.  Very  often  it  exists  in 
their  subjects,  in  a  state  of  latent  possibility,  waiting 
only  to  be  called  upon.     Although  exclusive  partizans 


258    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

of  suggestion,  they  ignore  one  of  its  most  remarkable 
powers  —  the  genesial  power  of  metagnomy;  or  else 
they  deny  it,  as  being  inexplicable  by  science,  forget- 
ting that  science  is  no  more  in  a  position  to  explain 
the  curative  power  of  suggestion,  which  none  of  them 
doubts  for  a  minute. 

Let  us  remark,  moreover,  that  suggestive  action 
nearly  always  has  to  be  completed  by  that  of  certain 
objects,  which  can  even  sometimes  replace  it.  In  order 
to  direct  his  clairvoyant  powers  upon  a  given  person, 
the  subject  must  be  en  rapport  with  this  person  by 
direct  contact  with  him  or  with  an  object  which  has 
belonged  to  him  and  is,  so  to  speak,  impregnated  with 
his  personality  —  a  piece  of  his  hair,  or  of  his  clothing, 
a  letter  written  by  him,  etc. 

Also,  the  subject  can,  without  the  aid  of  any  outside 
suggestion,  place  himself  in  a  state  of  clairvoyance, 
either  by  gazing  fixedly  into  a  crystal  globe  (known  as 
crystal  gazing)  ;  or  into  a  simple  decanter  of  water  — 
which,  it  is  claimed,  Cagliostro  used;  or  into  a  "  magic 
mirror  ";  or  by  any  other  process  that  may  be  desired. 
Is  it  not  natural  to  suppose  that  the  divining-rod  and 
the  pendulum  play  almost  the  same  role  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  special  metagnomy  of  water-diviners? 
And,  if  the  lines  of  the  hand,  the  cards,  coffee-grounds, 
etc.,  have  really  any  virtue,  does  it  not  consist  in  the 
property  which  these  objects  have  to  provoke  in  the 
medium  the  apparition  of  her  natural  second  sight? 

In  a  word,  the  apparition  of  clairvoyance  would  ap- 
pear to  be  linked,  in  a  way  that  is  still  mysterious  to 
us,  to  certain  ensembles  of  beliefs  and  practises  which 
undoubtedly   determine   in   their   adepts   a   particular 


Giobt^^d  Stand  lent  b\  Dee  &  Fukusliima,  Inc.,  N.  ¥. 

CRYSTAL  GAZING 

The  subject,  placing  herself  in  a  state  of  clairvoyance  by  gazing 
fixedly  into  the  crystal  globe,  brings  into  play  remarkable  powers  of 
second  sight,  prophecy,  etc.,  which  normally  are  latent. 


DVAXAD  JAT2Y5I3 

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io  8i3woq  aldfijliBrnai  ^Blq  oini  8§nhd  ,9doI§  Ibjbn^io  arij  oJni  yibaxft 
.JnalBl  3iji   {llemion  rioiriw  ,.d]3  ,YD9riqoiq  .irigig  bnoD9a 


CLAIRVOYANCE  259 

mental  and  nervous  state,  provocative  of  the  metagno- 
mic  faculties. 

The  history  of  religions  offers  us  numerous  examples 
of  clairvoyance,  under  all  its  forms  —  penetration  of 
thought,  second  sight,  telepathy,  prophecy,  etc. 

Similarly,  metagnomy  is  produced  very  frequently 
in  the  course  of  spiritistic  seances.  Facts  unknown  to 
the  medium,  occasionally  also  to  the  assistants,  and 
relative  sometimes  to  objects  and  events  of  the  present, 
sometimes  of  the  past,  and  sometimes  even  of  the  fu- 
ture, are  revealed,  by  the  intermediary  of  the  table  or 
the  planchette,  by  means  of  automatic  writing,  or  by 
the  word  of  the  medium  in  a  trance.  And  these  reve- 
lations appear  to  proceed  from  a  personality  distinct 
from  all  those  of  the  participants  of  the  seance,  from 
a  spirit  capable  of  perceiving,  in  conditions  absolutely 
different  from  those  of  this  life,  the  material  organiza- 
tion of  their  senses  and  their  brain,  consequently  as 
manifesting  what  might  be  called  "  transcendental  me- 
tagnomy." 

IV 

In  the  presence  of  a  mass  of  facts  so  extraordinary 
as  these,  the  first  inclination  of  our  intelligence  is  to 
deny  or  to  doubt;  and  when  it  seems  forced  upon  us 
to  recognize  the  reality,  at  least  of  some  among  them, 
we  immediately  demand  the  explanation. 

How  are  such  phenomena  possible? 

That  is  the  question  that  our  intelligence  asks  insist- 
ently; and  we  are  surprised,  impatient,  not  to  receive  an 
answer;  at  least  we  are  not  satisfied  to  accept  precipi- 
tately the  first  apparent  solution  that  is  offered  to  us. 


26o  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

But  the  true  scientific  spirit  consists  in  being  disinter- 
ested, at  least  temporarily,  in  the  need  for  an  explana- 
tion, and  in  being  reduced  voluntarily  to  a  sole  research 
—  slow,  persevering,  obstinate  —  of  the  determinism 
of  the  phenomena. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  scientist,  the  most  ingenious,  the 
most  intrinsically  coherent,  theory  is,  by  itself,  without 
value  and  without  interest;  it  constitutes  even  an 
obstacle  and  a  danger  to  science,  if  it  merely  aids  the 
mind  to  represent  to  itself  facts  already  known,  in  a 
way  that  pleases  it  and  so,  satisfying  its  curiosity,  dis- 
penses with  all  further  investigation.  The  sole  reason 
for  existence,  we  do  not  say  of  theories  but  of  hypothe- 
ses, in  all  experimental  study,  is  to  make  possible  the  dis- 
covery of  facts  still  unknown,  in  permitting  us  to  insti- 
tute a  series  of  new  experiments ;  and  these  hypotheses 
must  always  conserve  the  character,  not  of  explana- 
tions, in  the  real  sense  of  the  word,  but  of  simple 
interpretations y  always  subject  to  revision  and  to  con- 
trol. 

In  general,  the  explanations  or  interpretations  which 
are  given  of  the  metagnomic  phenomena  consist  in 
linking  all  the  forms  of  clairvoyance  to  one  among  them 
(that  which  the  author  of  the  explanation  or  interpre- 
tation has  more  particularly.  If  not  exclusively,  stud- 
ied), and  in  considering  this,  sometimes  as  a  primary 
fact,  as  an  incontestable  law  established  by  experimen- 
tation; sometimes  as  an  extremely  probable  induction, 
which  imposes  itself  by  its  analogy  with  other  laws 
already  acquired  to  science;  and  sometimes  as  a  neces- 
sary deduction  of  a  theory  dogmatically  affirmed. 


CLAIRVOYANCE  261 

This  last  case  is  that  of  a  certain  number  of  spiritists 
who,  admitting  the  existence  of  spirits  and  their  inter- 
vention in  things  of  this  world  as  a  certain  truth,  attrib- 
ute to  spirits  not  only  the  facts  of  *'  transcendental  or 
spiritoidal  metagnomy,"  but  all  the  facts  of  supernor- 
mal knowledge,  under  whatever  forms  and  in  whatever 
circumstances  they  may  be  produced.  The  clairvoyance 
of  the  subjects  and  mediums  would  come  to  them  always 
from  an  exterior  and  super-terrestrial  source ;  it  would 
be  always  a  revelation  emanating  from  the  Beyond. 

More  in  favor  with  the  majority  of  contemporary 
psychists  is  the  explanation  which  links  all  the  forms 
of  metagnomy  with  the  fact  of  thought-penetration  or 
mental  suggestion.  This  fact  would  appear  henceforth 
sufficiently  proved  by  observation  and  experimentation, 
and  it  is  believed  that  it  may  be  established  as  a  law, 
capable  of  explaining  completely  the  diversity  of  the 
particular  cases. 

It  would  be  sufficient,  therefore,  to  admit  that  there 
exists  a  possibility  of  intercommunication  of  minds, 
which  would  itself  undoubtedly  have  as  a  necessary  con- 
dition an  intercommunication  of  brains.  And  thus  not 
only  psychometry  would  be  explained,  but  also  telepathy 
and  vision  at  a  distance. 

Expressed  in  terms  of  a  physical  order,  the  hypothe- 
sis may  be  said  to  admit  that  each  human  brain  emits 
special  radiations,  correlative  to  its  thoughts,  conscious 
or  unconscious,  of  rays  susceptible  of  being  arrested  in 
transition  by  another  brain,  and  of  reproducing  the 
thoughts  of  the  first  brain.     The  rays  are  capable  also, 


262  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

perhaps,  of  making  Impressions  of  material  objects  and 
of  storing  them,  as  sound  vibrations  are  stored  in  the 
discs  of  a  gramophone.  But  there  is  not  in  this  hypoth- 
esis direct  metagnomic  vision  of  material  objects. 

"  Lucidity,"  said  Dr.  Osty,  "  is  not  a  monopsychic 
phenomenon.  Its  production  necessitates  the  har- 
monious working  of  two  brains :  the  one  furnishing  the 
psychic  force,  the  other  its  exceptional  sensibility,  react- 
ing to  the  excitation  received  and  reconstituting  it  into 
its  original  form  of  thought." 

The  early  mesmerists  admitted,  on  the  contrary,  two 
distinct  forms  of  metagnomy:  one  subjective,  the  pene- 
tration of  thought;  the  other  objective,  vision  at  a  dis- 
tance. 

It  is  not  only  human  brains  which  emit  metagnomic 
radiations;  all  the  objects  of  nature  do  so.  To  the 
"  C-rays  "  which  link  brain  to  brain  it  is  necessary  to 
add  the  "  O-rays  "  which  link  object  to  brain,  these 
two  being  twin  forms  of  the  same  energy,  whose  na- 
ture is  still  unknown  to  us,  and  which  Reichenbach 
named  od  or  odyle. 

Thus  each  human  brain  would  act  as  a  center  to 
which  all  the  rays  from  other  brains  and  from  all  points 
of  the  universe  would  arrive,  when  it  would  have  the 
possibility,  thanks  to  this  universal  intercommunica- 
tion, of  perceiving  what  happens  In  every  mind  and  In 
every  place.  For  want  of  the  necessary  conditions, 
this  possibility  remains  latent.  But  let  these  conditions 
be  realized,  and  metagnomy  becomes  apparent. 

This  natural  mechanism  is  no  less  marvelous  than 
that  which  makes  possible  wireless  telegraphy  and 
telephony. 


CLAIRVOYANCE  263 

What  good,  however,  does  it  do  for  us  to  linger  upon 
these  views? 

For  all  those  who  desire  to  hasten  the  accession  of 
psychical  studies  in  the  domain  of  science,  there  is  a 
more  urgent  task:  that  of  collecting  such  a  mass  of 
authentic  and  concordant  facts  that  the  most  opinion- 
ated skepticism  cannot  fail  to  give  way  before  the  evi- 
dence; and  that  of  deducing  the  elements,  from  which 
our  posterity  may  find  perhaps,  some  day,  the  definite 
explanation. 


r 


CHAPTER  XII 

SPIRITISM  AND   CRYPTOPSYCHISM 


Are  there  actually  real  facts,  capable  of  being  con- 
trolled and  scientifically  studied,  which  come  under  the 
heading  of  spiritism? 

This  question  is  answered  in  the  negative  only  by 
those  who  are  wholly  ignorant  of  the  matter. 

The  researches  of  such  observers  as  Professor 
Thury  of  Geneva,  the  Count  de  Gasparin,  the  members 
of  the  Dialectic  Society  of  London  —  among  whom 
must  be  mentioned  the  mathematician  De  Morgan  and 
the  naturalist  Wallace  —  the  researches  of  the  great 
physician  and  chemist,  William  Crookes,  of  Professor 
Charles  Richet  and  Professor  Flournoy,  and  of  still 
many  others,  have  definitely  placed  beyond  all  possible 
contestation  the  reality  of  spiritistic  phenomena. 

Inasmuch  as  the  word  spiritism,  although  generally 
employed.  Is  nevertheless  equivocal,  we  have  proposed 
for  this  order  of  phenomena  the  name  spiritoidal,  for 
this  has  the  advantage  of  eliminating  any  prejudging 
of  the  intimate  nature  or  the  causes  of  the  phenomena. 

Contrary  to  the  prejudices  which  still  exist,  we  con- 
sider that  not  only  respect  but  encouragement  should 
be  given  to  those  scientists  who  devote  their  energy  to 
bringing  a  little  light  into  this  still  dark  and  mysterious 

264 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM    265 

corner  of  nature.  Instead  of  deriding  their  enterprise, 
it  would  be  better  to  recognize  their  courage  and  disin- 
terestedness, for  they  conduct  these  difficult  studies  in 
the  hope  of  making  new  discoveries  of  great  Importance 
to  the  widening  of  science  and  the  progress  of  the  hu- 
man mind. 

The  scientific  study  of  spiritism,  or  spiritoidal  phe- 
nomena, should  be  conducted  (i)  by  observing  the 
greatest  number  of  spiritistic  facts,  while  taking  all 
possible  precautions  to  guarantee  their  authenticity; 
(2)  by  classifying  them  in  series,  in  order  to  bring  out 
the  relations  which  may  exist  between  them;  (3)  by 
deducing,  from  these  relations,  the  formulas  to  express 
them. 

In  a  word,  we  must  apply  to  spiritistic  facts  that 
scientific  method,  with  the  necessary  modifications  of 
detail,  to  which  the  natural  and  physical  sciences  have 
owed  their  success.  The  real  scientific  spirit,  we  can- 
not too  often  repeat,  consists  in  the  elimination  of  the 
need  for  an  explanation,  and  in  limiting  one's  efforts  to 
determining  the  phenomena.  The  object  of  the  sci- 
entist Is  not  to  learn  why  certain  phenomena  exist,  and 
why  they  are  thus  and  not  otherwise ;  It  is  to  learn  how 
it  is  possible  for  him  to  Influence  them,  to  provoke  them, 
to  prevent  or  modify  them,  as  well  as  to  foresee  them, 
and  ultimately  to  utilize  them  In  possible  applications 
to  the  needs  of  human  activities. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  scientist  should  not  try 
to  understand  the  facts  that  he  witnesses.  On  the  con- 
trary. If  he  would  discover  their  determinism,  if, 
through  appropriate  experimentation,  he  would  Inter- 
rogate Nature  and  compel  her  to  answer,  it  is  indls- 


266  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

pensable  that  he  use  reasoning  and  imagination. 
Hence  the  inevitable  intervention  of  directing  ideas  in 
experimental  research;  hence  the  constant  use  of  the 
hypothesis,  not  to  explain  hut  to  interpret  the  phenom- 
ena as  the  knowledge  acquired  upon  certain  of  their 
rapports  may  enable  us,  as  it  were,  to  anticipate  future 
knowledge  of  certain  others. 

In  the  field  of  spiritoidal  facts  the  seeker  finds  him- 
self brought,  more  or  less  rapidly,  before  two  possible 
interpretations,  both  suggested  by  the  facts  themselves. 
These  are  the  spiritistic  interpretations  and  the  crypto- 
psychic  interpretation. 

II 

The  principal  characteristic  of  spiritoidal  facts  Is 
that  they  seem  to  imply  the  intervention,  in  things  of 
this  world,  of  intelligent,  invisible  beings  who  are  not 
normally  part  of  our  world. 

Because  of  this  appearance,  it  could  be  said  that  the 
first  interpretation  suggested  Is  the  spiritistic.  This  Is 
the  interpretation  that  was  adopted  by  the  first  observ- 
ers; and  it  is  also  that  given  by  casual  observers  who 
have  no  scientific  training,  and  by  those  who,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  consider  these  facts  as  having  no  pos- 
sible relation  to  science. 

The  cryptopsychic  Interpretation,  on  the  contrary, 
supposes  doubt  of  the  reality  of  the  appearance  pre- 
sented by  spiritoidal  facts.  It  Is  an  Idea  of  the  second 
period,  a  reflection  provoked  by  the  comparison  of 
this  order  of  facts  to  all  the  rest  of  our  experience. 
The  facts  which  we  have  known  hitherto  —  astronomy, 
physics,  chemistry,  physiology  —  are  the  result  of  nat- 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM     267 

ural  causes,  forming,  together,  a  closed  and  coherent 
system,  belonging  to  a  same  world.  And  those  which 
imply  intelligences,  consciousnesses,  are  linked,  in  a 
constant  order,  to  that  system  of  matter  and  motion 
wherein  all  reality  appears  to  be  enclosed. 
(  It  is,  therefore,  more  in  keeping  with  the  tendencies 
and  the  general  method  of  science  to  suppose,  until 
proof  to  the  contrary,  that  these  special,  spiritoidal 
facts,  in  appearance  the  outcome  of  intelligent  causes, 
unknown  and  outside  of  nature,  are  in  reanty  pro- 
duced by  known  and  intelligent  causes  belonging  to  na- 
ture, although  acting  in  a  hidden  manner,  as  if  screened 
from  direct  observation. 

'  This  is  but  an  application  of  the  great  principle 
which,  since  Descartes,  has  dominated  and  directed  all 
modern  science:  i.  e.,  the  supposition  that  the  unknown 
can  always  be  made  known ;  that  in  the  realm  of  things 
certain,  already  demonstrated  and  verified,  the  reason 
of  things  still  uncertain  can  be  sought  and  found. 

Yet  intelligent  causes,  absolutely  natural  and  visible, 
certainly  intervene  in  spiritoidal  facts.  They  are  the 
human  beings  in  whose  presence  these  facts  are  mani- 
fested. Hence,  instead  of  attributing  to  spiritoidal 
facts  the  intervention  of  hypothetical  beings  —  spirits 
of  the  dead,  elementals,  angels,  demons,  etc.,  the  reality 
of  whom  we  have  no  proof  —  science,  if  she  would  be 
faithful  to  her  principles,  must  first  of  all  connect  them 
with  the  forces  and  faculties  of  the  human  beings  — 
the  sitters,  and  the  mediums  in  particular.  If  is  true 
that  mediums  are  thoroughly  unconscious  of  interven- 
ing actively  in  the  production  of  these  phenomena ;  for 
they  believe  that  spiritistic  phenomena  are  produced  in 


268  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

or  through  them,  unknown  to  themselves  and  without 
their  participation,  through  forces  foreign  to  their  con- 
sciousness, and  often  contrary  to  their  own  will.  But  is 
this  an  illusion  with  them? 

The  study  of  hypnoidal  facts,  similar  to  the  spirit- 
oidal  although  not  presenting  their  characteristic  ap- 
pearance, proves  that,  in  certain  circumstances  human 
beings  may  think  and  act  and  manifest  aptitudes  hith- 
erto unsuspected,  unknown  to  themselves,  and  without 
the  possibility  of  their  attributing  the  facts  to  them- 
selves. 

It  is,  therefore,  quite  natural  that  those  who  study 
spiritism,  or  spiritoidal  phenomena,  in  a  scientific  way 
should  first  of  all  apply  the  cryptopsychic  interpreta- 
tion, and  should  reject  it  only  when  its  application  has 
been  proved  incontestably  false.  It  must  also  be  ad- 
mitted, however,  that  in  the  majority  of  cases  this  in- 
terpretation agrees  perfectly  with  all  the  particu- 
larities of  the  phenomenon  to  which  it  is  applied. 

The  following,  quoted  from  Esprits  et  mediums,  by 
Professor  Flournoy,  is  a  typical  example: 

Madame  Dupond,  a  well-bred  and  cultured  lady  from  Ge- 
neva, of  literary  taste  and  philosophical  and  religious  leanings, 
took  up  the  study  of  spiritism  at  the  age  of  forty-five.  She 
tried  automatic  writing,  and,  at  the  end  of  eight  days,  was 
able  to  get  the  names  of  dead  relatives  and  friends,  who  gave 
her  messages  of  a  philosophico-religious  nature.  About  three 
days  later,  after  having  received  various  communications,  her 
pencil  wrote  suddenly,  and  quite  unexpectedly,  the  name  of  a 
young  Frenchman  she  knew  —  Rodolphe  X.,  who  had  recently 
entered  a  religious  order  in  Italy.  As  she  did  not  know  that 
he  was  dead,  she  was  surprised  and  shocked;  but  her  hand 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM    269 

continued  to  write,  confirming  the  sad  news  in  the  following 
circumstantial  details : 

"  I  am  Rodolphe.  I  died  last  night  at  eleven  o'clock,  the 
23rd.  I  had  been  ill  for  several  days,  and  I  was  not  able  to 
write.  I  had  an  inflammation  of  the  lungs,  caused  by  a  sudden 
change  in  the  weather.  I  died  without  pain,  and  I  have  been 
thinking  of  you.  ...  I  am  in  space.  ...  I  see  your  parents, 
and  I  like  them  also.  Good-by.  ...  I  am  going  to  pray  for 
you.  ...  I  am  no  longer  a  Catholic,  I  am  a  Christian." 

After  her  first  astonishment,  Madame  Dupont  believed  more 
and  more  in  the  authenticity  of  this  message,  because  for  almost 
a  week  she  continued  to  receive  communications  from  Rodolphe, 
making  numerous  allusions  to  their  past  relations.  She  had 
met  Rodolphe,  who  was  then  a  priest,  during  a  stay  in  the 
South  the  preceding  spring.  He  had  returned  from  Italy,  where 
he  had  spent  the  winter  on  account  of  his  poor  health,  and  had 
stopped  a  few  days  at  the  same  hotel.  Between  this  Genevese, 
a  confirmed  Protestant  and  republican,  and  this  man  from  the 
north  of  France,  an  ardent  legitimist  and  Catholic,  in  spite  of 
the  difference  in  their  ages  (he  was  scarcely  twenty),  a  real 
moral  and  intellectual  intimacy  was  formed,  as  a  natural  con- 
sequence of  the  analogy  of  their  temperaments  and  the  unity  of 
their  idealistic  aspirations.  Each  of  them  had  tried,  without 
success,  to  convert  the  other  to  his  own  ideas;  and  when  they 
were  separated,  they  had  continued  this  discourse  by  corre- 
spondence, even  after  Rodolphe  had  entered  the  religious  order, 
pouring  out  their  souls  to  each  other  in  full  confidence.  At 
the  moment  of  Madame  Dupond's  automatic  writing,  it  was 
Rodolphe  who  owed  a  letter  to  his  friend. 

Do  we  not  see  there  an  excellent  case  of  the  apparent 
intervention  of  a  "  discarnated  spirit  " —  to  use  the 
expression  familiar  to  the  partizans  of  the  spiritistic 
doctrine  —  in  the   affairs  of  this  world?     Unfortu- 


270     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

nately,  six  days  after  the  first  communication  from  the 
supposed  dead  man: 

.  .  .  there  reached  her  by  post  a  letter  from  Rodolphe,  who, 
far  from  being  dead,  was  in  perfect  heahh.  It  shook  Madame 
Dupond's  recent  spiritistic  convictions  so  thoroughly  that  she 
was  discouraged  from  pursuing  further  such  disconcerting  ex- 
periments. 

It  is  necessary  to  read  in  Professor  Flournoy's  book 
the  detailed  and  penetrating  analysis  to  which  he  has 
submitted  all  the  circumstances  of  this  interesting  case, 
and  which  fully  justifies,  we  think,  the  conclusion  he  has 
reached:  viz.,  that  all  the  communications  received  by 
Madame  Dupond  reflected  her  own  dispositions,  con- 
scious or  not,  and  corresponded  exactly  to  those  which 
could  not  fail  to  be  In  her.  "  She  alone,  in  other  words, 
and  not  Rodolphe,  was  dead  at  that  moment,  and  can 
be  considered  as  the  real  source  of  the  communica- 
tions." 

Ill 

One  would  be  inclined  to  generalize  this  conclusion, 
in  order  to  extend  it  to  all  spiritoidal  phenomena,  by  ex- 
amining one  after  the  other  the  many  different  kinds, 
and  not  stopping  to  explain  the  manifest  analogies 
which  Hnk  them  to  the  ensemble  of  other  parapsychic 
phenomena. 

From  the  classification  which  we  have  given  in  Our 
Hidden  Forces,  the  parapsychic  phenomena  can  be 
divided  into  three  great  classes,  which  follow  one  after 
the  other,  in  the  order  of  their  increasing  complexity 
and  difficulty: 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM     271 

( 1 )  Hypnoidal  phenomena. 

(2)  Magnetoidal   phenomena. 

(3)  Spiritoidal  phenomena. 
Spiritoidal  phenomena,  when  disregarding  all  hy- 
potheses as  to  their  origin,  do  not  differ  essentially  from 
the  others;  for  there  can  always  be  found,  for  each  of 
them,  a  correspondent  of  the  same  kind  in  the  series 
of  hypnoidal  or  magnetoidal  phenomena. 

For  example,  the  state  of  trance  in  a  medium  is  en- 
tirely analogous  to  the  state  of  hypnosis  of  a  subject  put 
in  catalepsy  or  somnambulism;  it  presents  almost  the 
same  physiological  and  psychological  elements.  There 
is  between  them  little  difference  except  this:  The 
trance  is  produced  and  developed  spontaneously,  with- 
out the  intervention  of  any  visible  operator,  under  the 
sole  effect  of  the  nervous  and  mental  conditions  in  which 
the  medium  is  placed,  and  among  which  the  helief  in 
spirits  and  the  expectation  of  their  intervention  would 
appear  to  play  a  considerable  part.  The  hypnotic  state 
is  produced  experimentally,  artificially,  by  a  visible  oper- 
ator, a  hypnotizer,  who  undoubtedly  utilizes  the  men- 
tal and  nervous  dispositions  of  the  subject;  for  mani- 
festly the  subject's  voluntary  action  is  the  cause  which 
unlocks  the  phenomenon  and  directs  the  successive  de- 
velopments —  without  its  necessarily  being  a  question 
of  spirits  here  any  more  than  in  an  experiment  in  physics 
or  chemistry. 

It  is  true  that,  in  many  cases,  the  medium  does  not 
appear  to  have  undergone  any  change,  either  physically 
or  mentally,  and  neither  he  himself  nor  any  of  the 
assistants  doubts  the  role  that  he  plays  in  the  phenome- 
non.    This  is  established  by  the  disappearance  of  the 


272  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

phenomenon  immediately  that  the  medium  is  absent, 
and  his  presence  is  sufficient,  on  the  contrary,  to  pro- 
duce it,  in  spite  of  all  the  variations  which  can  have 
place  in  the  entourage. 

But  any  one  who  is  at  all  familiar  with  the  experi- 
mental study  of  hypnoidal  phenomena  well  knows  that, 
if  these  phenomena  are  usually  manifested  In  a  special 
state,  analogous  to  sleep,  there  Is  nevertheless  an  in- 
finity of  degrees  between  this  state  and  that  of  waking, 
and  that  the  greater  part  of  those  that  are  observed  in 
the  state  of  hypnosis  can  equally  be  observed  In  a  state 
which  cannot  by  any  apparent  sign  be  distinguished 
from  the  waking  state.  In  particular,  It  is  always 
possible,  after  having  put  a  subject  to  sleep,  to  make 
him  open  his  eyes  merely  by  suggesting  to  him  the  con- 
tinuation of  sleep,  and  to  put  him  thus  in  a  state  which, 
to  the  uninformed  onlookers,  will  present  all  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  waking  state. 

Similarly,  the  messages  obtained  from  supposed  dead 
people  —  whether  by  means  of  the  table,  by  automatic 
writing,  or  by  any  other  process  —  singularly  resemble, 
if  we  omit  their  spontaneity  and  separate  them  from 
the  spiritistic  atmosphere  which  surrounds  them,  the 
facts  of  dissociation  of  the  personality,  artificially  pro- 
voked by  such  experimenters  as  Professor  Pierre  Janet, 
and  of  which  we  have  given  numerous  examples  In 
Our  Hidden  Forces. 

Also,  the  facts  of  thought-reading  and  clairvoyance, 
so  frequently  found  In  the  reports  of  spiritistic  seances, 
have  their  analogies  In  the  facts  of  perceptive  tele- 
psychism,  or,  as  It  Is  sometimes  called,  psychometry. 

If  perhaps  we  are  still  Incapable  of  producing  experi- 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSY.CHISM    273 

mentally  the  phenomena  which  compose  what  may  be 
called  the  physical  side  of  spiritism  —  movements  of 
levitation,  of  translation,  etc.,  produced  by  mediums 
upon  material  objects,  apparitions  of  light  and  of  form, 
materializations,  which  are  observed,  or  believed  to  be 
observed,  in  certain  spiritistic  seances  —  we  have  never- 
theless reports  of  phenomena  of  the  same  kind,  which, 
although  equally  spontaneous,  are  at  least  produced  in 
circumstances  from  which  all  spiritistic  element  Is  com- 
pletely absent. 

From  this  comparison  between  ( i )  spiritoldal  facts 
and  (2)  hypnoidal  and  magnetoidal  facts,  a  double  con- 
sequence would  seem  to  proceed: 

First:  All  the  facts  which  constitute  spiritism  may 
be  resolved  by  analysis  into  hypnoidal  and  magnetoidal 
facts,  differing  from  these  In  that  they  are  produced 
spontaneously  Instead  of  being  evoked  by  the  experi- 
menter, and  also  in  that  they  appear  linked  to  certain 
ideas  and  beliefs:  viz.,  spiritistic  ideas  and  beliefs,  con- 
scious or  unconscious,  in  the  individuals  or  the  sur- 
roundings where  they  are  observed.  Spiritism  ap- 
pears, therefore,  as  a  spontaneous  synthesis  of  all,  or 
almost  all,  the  parapsychic  facts,  determined  by  a  cer- 
tain particular  nervous  and  mental  state,  to  which, 
perhaps,  might  be  given  the  name  spiritogene,  first  used, 
I  believe,  by  Professor  Flournoy  in  Esprits  et  mediums. 

From  this  it  is  seen  that  science,  faithful  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  economy y  prefers  —  until  proof  to  the  contrary 
r —  to  consider  the  spiritoldal  facts  as  reducible  to  facts 
of  the  preceding  orders,  or  at  least  that  it  is  forced  to 
recognize  their  reduction  as  far  as  possible.  It  is  that 
which  explains,  and  In  a  large  measure  justifies,  the  atti- 


274  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

tude  of  the  majority  of  scientists  interested  in  this 
study,  and  their  visible  partiality  for  the  cryptopsychic 
interpretation. 

Second:  Even  in  admitting  the  hypothesis  of  the 
existence  of  spirits  and  their  effective  participation  In 
the  genesis  of  the  spiritoidal  phenomena,  it  would  be 
very  necessary  to  assert  that  the  whole  action  of  these 
spirits  consists  only  In  arousing  in  certain  susceptible 
subjects  (mediums)  the  majority  of  the  hypnoldal  and 
magnetoidal  phenomena  (hypnotism,  suggestion,  disso- 
ciation of  the  personality,  telepathy,  clairvoyance,  etc.) 

—  phenomena  that  are  constated  in  ordinary  subjects, 
and  produced  either  spontaneously  or  as  the  effect  of  the 
action  of  an  experimenter. 

It  can  thus  be  said  that  spirits  operate  in  exactly  the 
same  way  that  human  hypnotizers  and  magnetlzers  do. 

Therefore,  those  scientists  specialized  in  the  study 
of  the  parapsychic  phenomena,  who  do  not  exclude  a 
priori  the  hypothesis  of  spirits  but  recognize  that  the 
existence  of  such  agents,  however  improbable  it  may  be, 
is  not  necessarily  Impossible,  affirm  that,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  method,  the  study  of  spiritoidal  phe- 
nomena must  be  strictly  subordinated  to  that  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  two  preceding  orders  (hypnoidal 
and  magnetoidal),  and  that  It  Is  only  when  these  have 
been  carried  sufficiently  far  that  one  begins  to  see  the 
way  a  little  clearly  in  the  phenomena  of  the  third  order 

—  spiritoidal. 

IV 

It  is  true  that  there  remains  an  unsolved  problem  the 
force  of  which  increases  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM    275 

spirltoidal  facts  over  which  the  cryptopsychic  interpre- 
tation extends  its  influence.  This  problem  might  be 
formulated  thus: 

How  is  it  that  spiritistic  practises  —  undoubtedly 
with  the  aid  of  the  beliefs  which  accompany  them  —  are 
sufficient  to  cause  the  appearance  in  a  large  number  of 
persons,  often  with  extraordinary  rapidity,  of  an  abund- 
ant production  of  par apsy chic  phenomena,  varied  and 
really  marvelous,  while  the  most  able  experimenters 
have  trouble  in  provoking  even  a  feeble  part  of  these 
phenomena  by  the  most  efficacious  of  their  processes? 

It  is  not  unusual,  in  a  spiritistic  seance  that  is  even  a 
little  successful,  to  observe  the  facts  of  thought-read- 
ing, of  clairvoyance,  of  the  exteriorization  of  the  mo- 
tricity,  of  materialization,  etc.,  assembled  all  together 
in  one  spontaneous  synthesis,  the  secret  of  which  wholly 
escapes  us. 

It  is,  perhaps,  the  realization  of  this  enigma  which, 
in  these  last  few  years,  has  brought  a  certain  number  of 
scientists  —  such  as  William  James,  Sidgwick,  Frederic 
Myers,  Hodgson,  and  many  other  members  of  the  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research  of  London  —  to  look 
favorably  upon  the  spiritistic  interpretation.  There 
is  a  very  curious  evolution  in  that;  and  the  proof  of  it 
is  shown  in  a  book  by  the  great  English  scientist,  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge,  The  Survival  of  Man} 

It  is  known  that  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
after  a  long  Investigation  of  telepathy  and  other  para- 
psychic  phenomena,  which  was  begun  In  a  strictly  scien- 
tific spirit  and  without  any  particular  leaning  toward  the 

1  The  Survival  of  Man,  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  (New  York:  Moffat, 
Yard  and  Company). 


276  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

spiritistic  doctrine,  has  seemed  to  advance  by  degrees 
toward  conclusions  conforming  to  this  doctrine.  This 
is  shown  in  the  writings  of  its  members,  and  especially 
in  the  important  work  of  Frederic  Myers,  Human  Per- 
sonality. 

But  Frederic  Myers  and  his  colleagues,  it  might  be 
said,  were  not  real  scientists,  and  their  assertions  had 
not,  could  not  have,  in  the  eyes  of  the  public,  that 
authority  which  now  is  necessary  in  science  and  in  those 
who  act  as  its  representatives;  they  were  philosophers 
and  litterateurs  who,  it  might  be  believed,  merely 
skirted  rather  than  penetrated  the  true  scientific  spirit. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  purely  a  physicist,  whose  re- 
searches have  been  in  electricity  and  wireless  teleg- 
raphy, and  his  works  in  this  special  field  have  given 
him  a  world-wide  scientific  reputation. 

But  this  physicist  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  his 
conviction  that  **  man  survives  death  " —  a  conviction 
founded,  according  to  him,  upon  the  observation  of  a 
long  series  of  natural  facts;  and  he  considers  that  "  in 
the  future,  the  hour  will  come  when  this  belief  will  be 
scientifically  established." 

What  are  these  natural  facts  which  can  determine  in 
a  scientist  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  a  conviction  which 
appears  so  contrary  to  that  held  by  the  great  majority 
of  his  confreres? 

First  of  all,  the  facts  of  thought-transmission  and 
telepathy.  His  book  contains  numerous  and  signifi- 
cant examples,  drawn  often  from  his  own  experience. 
He  says : 

I  am  prepared  to  confess  that  the  weight  of  testimony  is 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM    277 

sufficient  to  satisfy  my  own  mind  that  such  things  do  un- 
doubtedly occur;  that  the  distance  between  England  and  India 
is  no  barrier  to  the  sympathetic  communication  of  intelligence 
in  some  way  of  which  we  are  at  present  ignorant;  that,  just 
as  a  signaling  key  in  London  causes  a  telegraphic  instrument  to 
respond  instantaneously  in  Teheran,  so  the  danger  or  death  of 
a  distant  child,  or  brother,  or  husband,  may  be  signaled,  with- 
out wire  or  telegraph  clerk,  to  the  heart  of  a  human  being 
fitted  to  be  the  recipient  of  such  a  message. 

There  follow  certain  facts  of  automatic  writing,  as, 
for  example,  those  that  the  medium,  Madame  Newn- 
ham,  exhibited  in  the  waking  state.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
says: 

The  instructive  feature  about  this  case  was  that  the  minds 
apparently  influencing  the  hand  were  not  so  much  those  of 
dead  as  of  living  people.  The  advantage  of  this  was  that  they 
could  be  catechized  afterward  about  their  share  in  the  trans- 
action; and  it  then  appeared  that  they  either  knew  nothing 
about  it  or  were  surprised  at  it ;  for  though  the  communications 
did  correspond  to  something  in  their  minds,  it  did  not  repre- 
sent anything  of  which  they  were  consciously  thinking,  and 
was  only  a  very  approximate  rendering  of  what  they  might 
be  wishing  to  convey. 

The  author  concludes  that  this  action,  by  which  one 
intelligence  communicates  with  another,  does  not  ema- 
nate from  conscious  regions  of  the  mind,  but  from  those 
of  the  subconsciousness  of  dreams,  whether  it  be  the 
action  of  the  living  or  of  the  dead. 

"  Since,"  says  he,  "  the  living  communicant  is  not 
aware  of  what  is  being  dictated,  so  the  dead  person  need 
not  be  consciously  operative." 


278    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

But,  then,  can  it  not  also  well  be  supposed  that  the 
impression  received,  instead  of  coming,  as  pretended, 
from  a  dead  person,  emanates  from  a  third  person, 
or  even  that  it  had  for  its  origin  —  according  to  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge's  own  expression  —  a  central  intelligence, 
some  anima  mundi,  to  which  would  be  connected  all  the 
intelligences  that  we  know,  and  by  which  they  would  be 
influenced,  a  *'  sort  of  universal  receptacle  in  which  all 
thoughts  and  all  intelligences,  past  and  present,  would 
be  represented  and  conserved"? 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  confesses,  however,  very  loyally, 
the  failure  of  an  experiment  from  which  he  hoped  to 
prove  the  possibility  of  communication  between  the 
living  and  the  dead.  Frederic  Myers  had  sent  him 
in  January,  1891,  a  sealed  envelope  in  the  hope  that 
after  his  death  the  communication  contained  in  the 
envelope  would  be  able  to  be  given  by  means  of  a 
medium.  Many  different  messages  obtained  by  a  well- 
known  medium,  Madame  Verrall,  and  coming  sup- 
posedly from  Frederic  Myers,  led  them  to  believe  that 
they  represented  this  communication.  The  envelope 
was  opened  in  December,  1904,  and  "  it  was  found  that 
there  was  no  resemblance  between  its  actual  contents 
and  what  was  alleged  by  the  script  to  be  contained  in 
it." 

Even  had  the  experiment  itself  succeeded,  it  would 
have  proved  nothing;  for  the  success  might  well  have 
been  due  to  clairvoyance  —  which  was  probably  the 
solution,  also,  of  a  case  described  by  Kant  in  Dreams 
of  a  Spirit  Seer: 

Madame  Herteville  (Marteville),  the  widow  of  the  Dutch 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM      279 

Ambassador  in  Stockholm,  some  time  after  the  death  of  her 
husband,  was  called  upon  by  Croon,  a  goldsmith,  to  pay  for  a 
silver  service  Vi^hich  her  husband  had  purchased  from  him. 
The  widow  was  convinced  that  her  late  husband  had  been  much 
too  precise  and  orderly  not  to  have  paid  this  debt,  yet  she  was 
unable  to  find  the  receipt.  In  her  sorrow,  and  because  the 
amount  was  considerable,  she  requested  Mr.  Swedenborg  to 
call  at  her  house.  After  apologizing  to  him  for  troubling  him, 
she  said  that  if,  as  people  claimed,  he  possessed  the  extraordi- 
nary gift  of  conversing  with  the  souls  of  the  departed,  he 
would  perhaps  have  the  kindness  to  ask  her  husband  about 
the  silver  service.  Swedenborg  was  quite  willing  to  comply 
with  her  request.  Three  days  later  this  lady  was  serving 
coffee  to  some  callers,  when  Swedenborg  arrived  and  informed 
her,  with  his  usual  sang-froid,  that  he  had  conversed  with  her 
husband.  The  debt  had  been  paid  several  months  before  his 
decease,  and  the  receipt  would  be  found  in  a  bureau  in  the 
room  upstairs.  The  lady  replied  that  the  bureau  had  been 
thoroughly  searched,  and  the  receipt  had  not  been  found 
among  all  the  papers.  Swedenborg  then  said  that  her  hus- 
band had  told  him  that  if  the  lefthand  drawer  were  pulled  out 
a  board  would  be  seen,  and  if  this  were  raised  it  would  dis- 
close a  secret  compartment,  containing  his  private  Dutch 
correspondence,  as  well  as  the  receipt.  Upon  hearing  this  de- 
scription, the  whole  company  went  with  the  lady  to  the  room 
upstairs.  The  bureau  was  opened;  the  board  was  raised,  dis- 
closing the  hidden  compartment,  the  existence  of  which  no  one 
had  ever  suspected;  and,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  all,  the 
papers  were  discovered  there,  just  as  Swedenborg  had  described. 

It  may  be  worth  while,  perhaps,  to  cite  a  strange  and 
really  enigmatic  fact,  reported  and  analyzed  in  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge's  book  under  the  caption  of  "  The  Mar- 
montel  Case  " : 


28o  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

On  December  ii,  1901 — toward  the  end  of  the  first  year 
in  which  Mrs.  Verrall  had  developed  the  power  of  automatic 
writing  —  her  hand  wrote  as  follows : 

Nothing  too  mean,  the  trivial  helps,  gives  confi- 
dence. Hence  this.  Frost  and  a  candle  in  the  dim 
light.  Marmontel,  he  was  reading  on  a  sofa  or  in 
bed  —  there  was  only  a  candle's  light.  She  will 
surely  remember  this.  The  book  was  lent,  not  his 
own  —  he  talked  about  it. 

Then  there  appeared  a  fanciful  but  unmistakable  attempt  at 
the  name  Sidgwick. 

Mrs.  Sidgwick,  widow  of  a  well-known  member  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  questioned  by  letter,  replied 
that  she  knew  nothing  about  the  matter  but  would  report  if 
she  came  across  the  name  Marmontel. 

The  same  day  that  this  reply  was  received,  Mrs.  Verrall 
felt  obsessed  by  the  desire  to  write.  She  obtained  a  second 
message : 

I  wanted  to  write.  Marmontel  is  right.  It  was  a 
French  book,  a  Memoir,  I  think.  Passy  may  help. 
Souvenirs  de  Passy,  or  Fleury.  Marmontel  was  not 
on  the  cover  —  the  book  was  bound  and  was  lent  — 
two  volumes  in  old-fashioned  binding  and  print.  It 
is  not  in  any  papers  —  it  is  an  attempt  to  make  some 
one  remember  —  an  incident. 

In  January,  1902,  Mrs.  Verrall  happened  to  write  to  a 
friend  of  hers  named  Mr.  Marsh,  asking  him  to  come  for  a 
week-end  visit;  and  he  replied  fixing  March  ist. 

Mrs.  Verrall  then  reports  as  follows: 

On  March  ist  Mr.  Marsh  arrived,  and  that  evening  at  din- 
ner he  mentioned  that  he  had  been  reading  Marmontel.     I 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM    281 

asked  if  he  had  read  the  Moral  Tales,  and  he  replied  that  it  was 
the  Memoirs.  I  was  interested  in  this  reference  to  Marmon- 
tel,  and  asked  Mr.  Marsh  for  particulars  about  his  reading, 
at  the  same  time  explaining  the  reasons  for  my  curiosity.  He 
then  told  me  that  he  had  got  the  book  from  the  London  Library, 
and  took  the  first  volume  only  to  Paris  with  him,  where  he  read 
it  on  the  evening  of  February  20th,  and  again  on  February 
2 1st.  On  each  occasion  he  read  by  the  light  of  a  candle;  on  the 
20th  he  was  in  bed,  on  the  21st  lying  on  two  chairs.  The 
weather  was  cold,  but  there  was,  he  said,  no  frost.  The  London 
Library  copy  is  bound,  as  most  of  their  books  are,  not  in  modern 
binding;  but  the  name  "  Marmontel "  was  on  the  back  of  the 
volume.  The  edition  has  three  volumes;  in  Paris  Mr.  Marsh 
had  only  one  volume,  but  at  the  time  of  this  dinner  he  had  read 
the  second  also. 

As  to  the  words  "  Passy  or  Fleury,"  Mr.  Marsh,  on 
his  return  to  London  three  days  later,  verified  the  fact 
that  in  the  chapter  of  the  Memoirs  he  had  read  on 
February  21st,  while  lying  on  two  chairs,  there  was  a 
description  of  the  finding  at  Passy  of  a  panel,  connected 
with  a  story  in  which  Fleury  plays  an  important  part. 

The  most  remarkable  thing  in  this  case  is  that  the 
fact  recounted  in  the  past  in  the  medium's  message  of 
December  11,  1901,  had  not  at  that  date  taken  place,  as 
it  was  not  produced  until  February  20,  1902  —  two 
months  later. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  not  mistaken  in  seeing,  not  a  case 
of  prevision,  testifying  to  the  remarkable  parapsychic 
faculties  of  the  medium,  but  a  case  of  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion, executed  automatically  under  the  influence  of  a  de- 
ceased person  who  was  desirous  of  giving  to  his  col- 
leagues of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  a  proof 


282  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

of  survival ;  and  he  proposes  to  us,  hesitatingly  enough, 
it  is  true,  the  following  hypothesis: 

An  outside  or,  let  us  say,  a  subliminal  intelligence  gets  the 
record  made  by  Mrs.  Verrall  that  an  unspecified  man  will  read 
Marmontel  on  a  frosty  night  lying  on  a  sofa  by  candle  light, 
etc.,  and  then  sets  to  work  to  try  and  secure  that  within  the 
next  two  or  three  months  some  man  shall  do  it  —  some  one 
who  is  sufficiently  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Verrall  to  make  it  rea- 
sonably likely  that  in  subsequent  conversation  she  may  sooner 
or  later  hear  of  the  circumstance. 

A  difficulty  here  is  that  one  might  have  to  admit  the 
possibility  of  an  anticipated  vision  of  future  events  — 
a  possibihty  energetically  denied  by  certain  contem- 
porary philosophers.  But  there  would  be  greater  diffi- 
culty in  admitting  the  reality  of  supernatural  interven- 
tions such  as  those  of  so-called  spirits.  On  the  other 
hand,  cases  of  "  distant  vision  into  space  "  are  less 
scarce  than  usually  supposed.  Myers,  in  his  Human 
Personality,  cites  a  very  significant  fact: 

Madame  MacAlpine,  on  the  shore  of  a  lake,  suddenly  be- 
came chilled  and  cramped.  At  this  moment  she  saw  before 
her  a  dark  cloud,  in  the  midst  of  which  was  a  tall  man,  who  fell 
into  the  lake  and  disappeared.  Several  days  later  she  learned 
that  a  Mr.  Espy,  tall  and  clothed  identically  as  in  her  vision, 
had  fallen  into  the  lake  and  been  drowned.  His  drowning 
occurred  several  days  after  Madame  MacAlpine's  vision;  but 
it  appeared  that  Mr.  Espy  had,  some  time  ago,  conceived  the 
idea  of  committing  suicide  by  drowning  in  the  lake. 

It  is  not  rare,  moreover,  to  find  in  the  visions  of  cer- 
tain psychometrists  transpositions  of  time  and  space, 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM     283 

quite  similar  to  that  of  the  "  Case  of  Marmontel." 
The  following  is  quoted  from  the  work  of  Edmond 
Duchatel : 

On  July  31,  1909,  we  placed  in  the  hands  of  Madame  L.  F., 
when  in  the  state  of  somnambulism,  a  certain  object  belonging 
to  a  person  whom  we  knew  to  be  in  London.  This  is  what 
the  psychometrist  said :  "  I  see  this  person  in  the  country,  and 
in  the  mountains.  She  is  reading  as  she  walks,  but  in  the  depths 
of  her  heart  she  is  sorrowful.  I  see  another  lady,  who  would 
like  to  call  her  Bichette  (she  always  calls  her  so),  and  ask  her 
why  she  sighs.  The  lady  who  is  called  Bichette  is  neither  tall 
nor  strong;  she  is  French,  and  is  about  forty  years  old." 

We  undertook  to  verify  these  statements.  They  were  in- 
exact at  the  time  of  the  experiment,  July  31,  1909.  They 
were,  however,  found  to  be  exact  thirty-five  days  later.  The 
descriptions  were  precisely  as  they  occurred,  even  to  the  name 
of  the  person,  which,  by  the  way,  was  the  means  of  identifying 
the  conditions  of  this  prophetic  scene. 

The  author  adds  that  Madame  L.  F.  also  made  the 
following  statement :  "  Many  people  have  come  back 
to  me  again  to  say  that  what  I  had  described  to  them, 
although  not  exact  at  the  time,  invariably  became  true 
about  two  months  afterward." 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  makes  use  of  such  facts  as  the 
preceding  merely  to  conclude  by  analogy  —  as  did 
Frederic  Myers  —  that  telepathy  (the  action  of  the 
mind  of  a  living  individual  upon  another  mind,  without 
the  intermediary  of  the  organs)  leads  to  spiritism 
(more  or  less  an  identical  action  from  the  mind  of  a 
person  deceased) . 

Unfortunately,  of  all  the  reasonings  the  least  demon- 


284    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

strative  is  that  by  analogy  which,  left  to  itself,  can  only 
give  birth  to  hypotheses. 

It  is,  therefore,  very  difficult  to  see  anything  but  the 
expression  of  an  hypothesis,  the  proof  of  which  remains 
to  be  made,  in  this  passage  from  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in 
which  he  explains  the  motive  an  operator  situated  in 
the  Beyond,  such  as  Sidgwick,  has  in  using  the  ''  scrip- 
tural mechanism  "  of  another  person: 

It  may  be  a  scientific  interest  surviving  from  the  time  in  this 
life  when  he  was  a  keen  and  active  member  of  the  S.  P.  R. ;  so 
that  he  desires  above  all  things  to  convey  to  his  friends,  engaged 
on  the  same  quest,  some  assurance,  not  only  of  his  continued 
individual  existence  .  .  .  but  of  his  retention  of  a  power  to 
communicate  indirectly  and  occasionally  with  them,  and  to  pro- 
duce movements  even  in  the  material  world  —  by  kind  per- 
mission of  an  organism,  or  part  of  an  organism,  the  temporary 
use  or  possession  of  which  has  been  allowed  him  for  that  purpose. 

Can  one  say  that  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  has  obtained,  in 
conditions  really  satisfactory  to  himself,  a  proof  that 
the  deceased  members  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search have  endeavored  to  collaborate  with  their  living 
colleagues  in  order  to  find  a  solution  to  the  mystifying 
problem  of  the  survival  of  the  personality  after  death? 

This  proof  certainly  cannot  be  found  in  the  pages 
where  he  describes  and  analyzes  the  mediumship  of 
Mrs.  Piper;  although  there  is  to  be  found  there  an  im- 
portant and  extraordinary  contribution  to  the  study  of 
spiritoidal  phenomena.  The  author  still  hesitates, 
however,  between  many  different  hypotheses: 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Mrs.  Piper  in  a  state  of  trance  reaches 
certain  sources  of  information.     She  finds  knowledge  of  events 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM    285 

which  have  taken  place  a  long  time  ago  or  at  a  distance.  But 
the  question  is  to  know  how  she  acquires  this  knowledge.  Is 
it  in  going  back  into  time  and  space,  and  in  witnessing  these 
events  as  they  occur?  Or  is  it  by  means  of  information  re- 
ceived from  the  actors  still  in  existence?  They  themselves, 
however,  do  not  remember  them,  or  else  only  imperfectly  so. 
Is  it  through  the  influence  of  contemporaneous  intelligences, 
absorbed  as  they  are  by  other  thoughts,  and  keeping  in  reserve 
in  their  brain  a  mass  of  forgotten  information  which  they 
offer  unconsciously  to  the  perception  of  the  person  in  a  state 
of  trance?  Or  is  it  that  as  long  as  the  state  of  trance  exists 
they  are  receptors  of  a  sole,  universal  intelligence,  of  which 
all  ordinary  consciousnesses,  past  and  present,  are  but  a  part  ? 

Opinions  may  differ  upon  the  point  of  knowing  which  is 
the  least  extravagant  supposition.  It  is  possible  to  invent  a 
simpler  hypothesis,  but  actually  my  feelings  are  that  no  explana- 
tion can  be  given  to  all  the  facts.  We  are,  it  seems,  at  the 
beginning  of  what  is,  in  reality,  a  new  branch  of  science.  To 
pretend  to  forge  explanations,  except  to  try  to  relate  the  facts 
among  them  and  to  open  a  new  field  of  experimentation,  is  as 
premature  as  it  would  have  been  for  Galvani  to  explain  the 
nature  of  electricity,  or  for  Copernicus  to  attempt  an  explana- 
tion of  the  laws  of  comets  and  meteors. 

It  Is  especially  In  the  last  chapters  of  his  book  that 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  speaks  of  the  supposed  communica- 
tions between  his  deceased  colleagues  and  himself, 
obtained  through  Mrs.  Thompson,  Mrs.  Piper,  and 
Mrs.  Grove.  But  these  communications,  nearly  al- 
ways confused,  reveal  the  intimate  details  of  a  character 
which  easily  causes  a  conviction  in  the  minds  of  those 
who,  having  known  the  communicators  when  living, 
believe  that  they  recognize  them  by  these  very  details. 
For  those  who  simply  read  the  accounts  of  them,  they 


286  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 


remain  almost  incomprehensible  and  in  any  case  un- 
convincing.    Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says: 

It  is  an  error  to  believe  that  there  exists  anything  sensational 
or  particularly  moving  In  these  communications.  The  conver- 
sation resembles  that  over  a  telephone ;  it  is  subject  to  the  same 
disagreeable  Interruptions,  to  the  same  periods  of  surprising 
clarity,  such  as  a  happy  expression,  an  intonation,  an  unexpected 
detail  revealing  without  possible  error  an  Identity  —  real  or 
manufactured  —  as,  for  Instance,  an  appropriated  slirname,  a 
banal  remembrance.  Similarly,  the  parents  of  the  communi- 
cator. If  they  are  present,  may  really  be  moved. 

This  undoubtedly  is  true.  But  it  is  equally  true  that 
others  may  remain  unmoved. 

We  shall  not  insist  upon  the  ingenious  theory  of 
"  cross-correspondences,"  whose  principal  characteris- 
tic is  that  a  sole  communicator,  or  control^  is  supposed 
to  manifest  himself  through  several  different  mediums, 
/  writing  automatically,  quite  independent  of  one  an- 
\  other,  distant  from  one  another  and  often  strangers; 
they  also  may  be  kept  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  the 
correspondence  sought.  In  many  cases  the  messages 
thus  obtained,  isolatedly,  are  unintelligible  and  do  not 
reveal  any  sense  until  later,  when  combined.  Thus  a 
full  message  does  not  exist  In  any  living  intelligence,  for 
not  until  the  different  parts  of  the  communication  have 
been  collected  does  their  meaning  appear. 

The  aim  of  these  efforts,  according  to  Sir  Oliver 
v\  JU^i>iA/^  Lodge,  is  to  prove  clearly  that  these  phenomena  are  the 
work  of  some  well-defined  intelligence  that  is  distinct 
from  that  of  any  of  the  mediums,  excluding  the  possi- 
bility of  a  mutual  telepathic  communication  between 


SPIRITISM  AND  CRYPTOPSYCHISM     287 

them  and  establishing,  as  far  as  possible,  by  the  sub- 
stance and  quality  of  the  messages,  that  they  really 
are  characteristic  of  the  particular  personality  from 
whom  the  communication  appears  to  emanate,  and  of 
none  other. 

But  has  this  aim  been  attained? 

"  The  question,"  says  the  author,  "  can  be  definitely 
and  conclusively  settled  only  with  time  and  much 
effort." 

In  spite  of  all  these  cautious  reservations,  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  remains  personally  convinced  that  "  as  the  best 
working  hypothesis  at  the  present  time  it  is  legitimate 
to  grant  that  lucid  moments  of  intercourse  with  de- 
ceased persons  may  in  the  best  cases  supervene."  He 
considers,  for  his  own  part,  as  entirely  established 
although  formulated  as  an  hypothesis,  the  reasoning 
which  he  enounces  as  follows :  "  Intelligent  inter- 
course between  minds  other  than  those  of  incarnated 
human  beings  and  ourselves  has  become  possible." 
And  he  expresses  his  belief  in  this  startling  compari- 
son: 

The  boundary  between  the  two  states  —  the  known  and  the 
unknown  —  is  still  substantial,  but  it  is  wearing  thin  in  places ; 
and  like  excavators  engaged  in  boring  a  tunnel  from  opposite 
ends,  amid  the  roar  of  water  and  other  noises,  we  are  begin- 
ning to  hear  now  and  again  the  strokes  of  the  pickaxes  of  our 
comrades  on  the  other  side. 

Will  all  these  hopes  be  confirmed  by  later  researches 
of  science?  Will  the  spiritistic  interpretation  of  phe- 
nomena so  strange  and  hardly  believable  for  all  those 
who  have  not  observed  them  directly,  supplant  finally 


288  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE 

the  cry ptopsy chic  interpretation,  contrary  to  the  opin- 
ion hitherto  prevalent  among  the  majority  of  scientists? 
This  is  a  secret  which  the  future  alone  will  reveal. 


APPENDICES 


NOTE  I 

SCIENCE    AND    MAGIC 
(From  La  Magie  science  naturelle,  by  Carl  du  Prel) 

Belief  in  magic  is  as  old  as  humanity. 

Religious  and  profane  history,  during  all  the  cen- 
turies and  among  all  the  nations,  shows  us  that  some 
men  distinguished  themselves  among  their  contem- 
poraries by  certain  incomprehensible  methods  of  reas- 
oning, by  the  domination  of  nature's  forces  and  of 
other  men.  According  to  the  very  different  applica- 
tion of  their  faculties  in  the  moral  order  of  things, 
these  men  were  called  saints,  prophets,  magicians,  sor- 
cerers, miracle  workers,  etc.  In  a  general  way  they 
might  be  called  magi.  Because,  however,  of  the  great 
number  of  these  stories  and  the  unquestionable  testi- 
mony of  many  cases,  we  refuse  to  qualify  them  as  fa- 
bles. If,  in  our  own  times,  we  have  shrunk  from  a 
belief  in  magic,  it  is  owing  to  the  progress  of  modern 
sciences,  the  increasing  tendency  of  which  has  been  to 
develop  themselves  into  closed  systems;  and  unfortu- 
nately such  systems  reject  all  facts  which  cannot  enter 
into  them. 

Taking  into  consideration  the  universal  law  of  cau- 
sality, it  is  perfectly  clear  that  the  word  magic  is  for  the 
scientific  researcher  but  the  provisional  denomination 
of  certain  human  faculties  which  have  not  hitherto 

291 


292  APPENDICES 

been  sounded,  and  that  magical  phenomena  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  based  upon  a  natural  science  as  yet  un- 
known to  us.  It  is  logical,  therefore,  to  think  that,  on 
account  of  its  spontaneous  development,  modern  science 
will  eventually  end  In  magic,  and  become  magic  Itself, 
In  so  far  as  It  will  pass  from  the  position  of  examining 
that  which  is  visible,  tangible,  and  welghable,  to  that 
which  is  invisible,  intangible,  and  unwelghable.  For, 
the  more  that  matter  Is  found  in  a  refined  state  —  as, 
for  Instance,  radiant  matter  —  the  more  It  will  be 
found  to  possess  remarkable  powers.  It  Is  easy  for 
us  to  be  convinced  of  this  fact,  in  physics  as  well  as  In 
psychology,  for  have  we  not  hypnotism  at  our  disposal 
to  show  us  the  points  of  contact  between  science  and 
magic  —  in  other  words,  between  natural  science  as 
we  know  it  and  natural  science  that  we  do  not  know? 

Progress  in  this  direction  cannot  fail  to  be  rapid,  for 
magic  Is  but  a  line  of  projection  in  science.  Especially 
when  feeling  the  necessity  for  widening  their  system 
scientists  will  undertake  the  study  of  magic,  which  pos- 
sesses certain  laws  that  are  still  entirely  ignored.  The 
man  who  limits  his  vision  to  the  study  of  natural  phe- 
nomena explained  by  known  laws  of  nature  obtains  but 
a  superficial  progress;  whereas  the  one  who  directs  his 
energies  toward  the  clarification  of  problems  still  ob- 
scure will  enable  others  to  reach  the  hidden  center  of 
things,  thereby  compelling  the  widening  and  transform- 
ing of  existing  systems  of  thought. 

Those,  therefore,  who  exclude  magic  from  their  in- 
vestigations remain  walled  In  a  system  which  Is  but 
provisional  and  which  limits  the  horizon  of  progress. 
For  this  reason  it  is  very  regrettable  that  science  and 


APPENDICES  293 

magic  are  regarded  as  being  opposed  to  each  other, 
whereas  in  truth  they  complete  each  other  advantag- 
eously. It  Is  by  working  In  the  two  directions  that  one 
can  be  convinced  of  this;  for  on  the  one  side  the  reg- 
ularity of  the  magical  phenomena  will  be  recognized, 
while  on  the  other  will  be  seen  the  progressive  magical 
advancement  of  natural  science. 

Without  retracting  anything  that  has  been  said  be- 
fore, and  without  expecting  too  much  from  those  read- 
ers whose  starting-point  has  been  in  natural  science,  it  is 
possible  to  meet  their  doubts  and  skepticisms.  I  do 
not  attribute  to  man  the  gift  of  certain  magical  powers 
as  understood  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  every  marvel 
and  sorcery,  every  magical  practise  —  legitimate  or 
illegitimate  —  was  explained  by  the  supernatural  help 
of  an  angel  or  a  demon.  It  Is  not  necessary  to  have 
recourse  to  this  solution.  The  possession  of  magical 
faculties  is  a  natural  endowment  of  man.  Agrippa 
of  Netteshelm  recognized  this  fact  long  ago :  Spiritus 
in  nobis,  qui  viget,  ilia  facit.  And  they  have  a  physical 
basis :  they  are  not  supernatural  but  supersensible ;  and 
their  investigation  should  be  our  principal  object. 

These  magical  faculties  are  latent  in  us;  conse- 
quently, they  must  have  manifested  themselves  before 
their  discovery  and  scientific  examination.  To  allay  all 
hesitation  in  this  direction,  I  have  laid  less  stress  upon 
practical  magic  —  as  yet  a  premature  undertaking  — 
than  upon  examples  of  an  involuntary,  natural,  and 
spontaneous  nature,  which  demonstrate  the  regularity 
of  their  production  in  conditions  always  similar.  I 
also  hope  that  I  have  established  the  principal  bases  of 
magic,  once  and  for  always ;     Magnetism  is  the  key  to 


294  APPENDICES 

physical  magic;  mono-ideism,  or  the  exercise  of 
thought  joined  to  volition,  is  the  key  to  psychological 
magic. 

The  only  way  to  reach  an  understanding  of  practical 
magic  Is  to  study  the  natural  examples  of  magic,  to  ob- 
serve the  conditions  of  their  manifestation,  and  to 
adapt  them  artificially  afterward.  Superstition,  It  Is 
true,  has  unfortunately  given  a  wrong  aspect  to  prac- 
tical magic,  for  it  did  not  take  Into  consideration  the 
natural  reality  and  regularity  of  Its  manifestations. 
But  we  discover  their  germ  of  truth  and  their  natural 
scientific  regularity  when,  comparing  them  with  nature 
—  cum  mundi  codice  primario,  originali  et  autographo, 
said  Campanella  —  we  recognize  the  concordance  of 
the  artificial  product  with  the  natural  and  spontaneous 
manifestation. 

The  reader's  first  doubts  will  vanish  when  he  sees 
innumerable  examples  of  natural  magic  being  produced 
by  experimentation,  and  realizes  that  natural  science 
has  reached  a  degree  where  magical  phenomena  are 
explained  —  as,  for  instance,  clairvoyance  through  the 
Roentgen  rays,  telepathy  through  wireless  telegraphy, 
fascination  through  the  power  of  suggestion,  and  sor- 
cery through  the  exteriorization  of  the  sensitiveness. 
He  will  finally  reach  the  conclusion  that  If  modern 
science  were  In  a  state  of  perfection  there  would  be 
no  more  room  for  magic;  and  that  it  Is  by  the  study  of 
these  same  facts,  called  magical  because  they  are  con- 
trary to  our  theories,  that  we  shall  be  in  a  position  to 
reach  our  goal  all  the  sooner. 

If  the  reader  believes  that  our  system  of  nature 
has  uttered  Its  last  word.  It  would  be  better  that  he 


APPENDICES  295 

should  lay  my  book  on  one  side;  for  in  spite  of  all  our 
discoveries  and  Inventions,  however  wonderful  these 
may  be,  we  are,  I  believe,  but  at  the  beginning  of  sci- 
ence, and  the  more  we  shall  dig  Into  the  secrets  of 
nature  the  more  marvelous  we  shall  find  her.  Let  us 
recognize  that  the  forces  hitherto  unknown  seldom  are 
latent  forces  which  are  never  manifested;  rather  are 
they  active  forces  constantly  manifesting  themselves 
according  to  certain  well  determined  conditions. 

Apples  fell  from  the  tree  long  before  Newton  dis' 
covered  the  law  of  gravitation.  Therefore  it  must  he 
equally  true  that  natural  examples  of  magic  existed 
long  before  any  one  believed  in  them.  It  must  be 
recognized  that  phenomena  in  contradiction  to  natural 
laws  already  known  are  constantly  produced,  though 
they  are  nevertheless  submitted  to  the  law  of  causality 
because  they  correspond  to  certain  unknown  laws  of 
nature. 

This  brief  review,  I  hope,  may  reconcile  medieval 
superstition,  which  was  mistaken  only  when  Interpreting 
the  explanation  of  the  facts,  with  modern  science,  which 
to-day,  as  in  former  times,  makes  the  mistake  of  deny- 
ing a  priori  certain  facts  that  It  will  be  forced  to  accept 
finally,  after  having  found  the  explanation  in  spite 
of  itself. 


NOTE  II 

THE    RELIGIOUS    PROBLEM    AND    THE    PSYCHICAL 
SCIENCES 

(Extract  from  the  Revue  philosophique,  April  i,   191 5) 

To-day  we  are  witnessing  an  attempt  at  the  creation, 
or  at  least  the  organization,  of  a  new  order  of  sciences 
—  the  psychical  sciences.  Being  en  rapport  with  psy- 
chology on  the  one  hand,  and  the  historical  and  socio- 
logical sciences  on  the  other,  they  have  as  their  object 
certain  more  or  less  extraordinary  and  apparently  mar- 
velous and  mysterious  phenomena  which  are  spon- 
taneously produced  in  our  midst  and  are  visibly  re- 
lated to  unknown,  or  imperfectly  known,  forces  and 
faculties  of  man's  moral  and  physical  nature.  Al- 
though in  some  respects  they  appear  to  be  more  fre- 
quent to-day,  under  the  particular  forms  in  which  they 
manifest  themselves,  they  have  nevertheless  always 
been  present  and  have  ever  played  an  important  and 
more  or  less  considerable  role  in  the  history  of  hu- 
manity. 

Religious  life  at  all  times  and  in  all  countries  has 
been  replete  with  examples.  For  this  reason  it  is  quite 
natural  to  ask  whether  the  sciences  which  have  as  their 
object  the  study  of  these  phenomena,  should  not  be 
called  upon  to  furnish,  sooner  or  later,  the  indispensa- 
ble elements  necessary  for  the  solution  of  the  religious 
problem  of  the  present  time. 

296 


APPENDICES  297 

First  of  all,  what  idea  must  we  form  of  these  sci- 
ences which  most  savants  refuse  to  consider  seriously, 
and  which  have  to  dispute  their  very  existence  to  char- 
latanism, superstition  and  incredulity? 

Let  us  try  to  orientate  our  steps  in  the  path  obscured 
by  a  pell-mell  ensemble  of  psychical  phenomena.  It 
would  seem  that  we  might  distinguish  three  orders  of 
phenomena,  which  are  superposed  one  upon  the  other 
as  they  advance  farther  into  the  realms  of  mystery. 
Some  are  already  known  and  defined  by  laws;  others 
are  still  uncertain  and  contested,  but  at  least  not  outside 
of  the  circle  of  nature;  while  still  others  appear  to 
draw  us  out  of  this  circle,  upon  a  plane  ordinarily  sepa- 
rated from  that  in  which  our  life  and  activities  are  man- 
ifested. This  classification  may  be  summarized  in 
three  names:  hypnotism,  animal  magnetism,  spirit- 
ism. Or,  to  use  terms  which  we  have  proposed  else- 
where, we  may  call  them:  hypnoidal  phenomena, 
magnetoidal  phenomena,  spiritoidal  phenomena. 

Unfortunately,  current  opinion  too  often  confounds 
these  distinct  branches  of  psychical  sciences,  and  it  is 
not  infrequent  to  hear  that  spiritism  is  the  study  of  the 
phenomena  of  hypnotism  or  animal  magnetism.  One 
might  as  well  say  that  an  astronomer  is  a  physicist  or  a 
zoologist. 

The  phenomena  of  the  first  order  —  hypnoidal  phe- 
nomena—  comprise  the  following:  (i)  Suggestion, 
as  practised  by  the  School  of  Nancy,  In  which  the  action 
of  the  spoken  word  or  of  the  gesture  Induces  in  certain 
individuals,  perhaps  in  all,  a  state  of  credulity  or  do- 
cility more  or  less  abnormal.  (2)  Hypnotism,  as  de- 
scribed by  the  School  of  the  Salpetriere :  that  is,  a  state 


298  APPENDICES 

of  torpor  or  of  automatism  provoked  in  certain  subjects 
by  means  of  special  physical  processes  —  the  fixation 
of  the  gaze  upon  a  brilliant  object,  pressure  exerted 
upon  a  given  part  of  the  body,  etc.  (3)  Dissociation 
of  consciousness  or  cryptopsychism,  so  masterly  de- 
scribed by  the  eminent  Dr.  Pierre  Janet,  where  one  sees 
the  consciousness  of  an  individual  being  projected,  or 
two  or  several  "  selves  "  are  coexistent  or  succeed  each 
other  in  one  and  the  same  individual.  All  these  phe- 
nomena, however  marvelous  and  baffling  in  nature, 
do  not  compel  us  to  suppose  the  existence  of  other 
causes  or  faculties  than  those  we  already  know,  and 
which  appear  possible  of  explanation  by  these  very 
causes  or  faculties,  in  supposing  only  that,  in  certain 
particular  conditions,  they  operate  according  to  given 
laws  which  are  as  yet  unknown,  laws  more  or  less  dif- 
ferent from  those  we  already  know. 

The  phenomena  of  the  second  order  —  magnetoidal 
phenomena  —  appear,  on  the  contrary,  to  imply  the 
intervention  of  forces  still  unknown,  unclassified,  but 
physical  in  nature  and  more  or  less  analogous  to  the 
radiating  forces  known  in  physics,  such  as  light,  heat, 
electricity,  magnetism,  etc.  They  may  be  classified  as 
animal  magnetism  on  the  one  hand,  and  telepsychism  on 
the  other,  according  to  whether  the  action  of  these 
forces  Is  being  exerted  In  proximity  through  the  in- 
termediary of  the  entire  nervous  system,  or  at  a  great 
distance,  without  Intermediary,  by  the  sole  action  of 
thought. 

Although  the  majority  of  scientists  admit  the  reality 
of  the  phenomena  of  the  first  order  there  are  few  who 
are  willing  to  consider  magnetoidal  phenomena  as  real 


APPENDICES  299 

or  at  least  as  distinct  from  hypnoidal  phenomena. 
Hypnotic  suggestion,  it  is  true,  may  produce  effects  simi- 
lar to  those  produced  by  magnetism;  but  when  taken 
separately  and  closely  examined  they  will  be  found  to 
be  specifically  different  and  distinct.  Thus  animal  mag- 
netism can  produce  certain  movements  of  attraction, 
repulsion,  anesthesia,  contraction,  etc.,  in  a  blindfolded 
subject  without  the  use  of  speech  by  the  sole  pres- 
entation of  the  hand  from  a  distance.  The  passes, 
by  which  the  mesmerist  awakes  or  induces  sleep  in  a 
subject,  owe  their  efficacy  to  this  same  psycho-magnetic 
force,  which  appears  to  be  polarised,  as  is  electricity, 
and  which  is  also  capable  of  effecting  appreciable  cures. 

Not  only  are  human  beings  susceptible  to  this  action, 
but  also  animals  and  plants.  (iQuite  recently  it  has 
been  proved  that  certain  organic  matter  can  be  pre- 
served from  putrefaction  by  the  sole  action  of  the 
passes  or  by  the  imposition  of  the  hands?)  The  proper- 
ties of  this  psycho-magnetic  force  have  also  been  com- 
municated to  material  objects;  this  would  explain,  for 
example,  the  curative  action  of  magnetized  water. 

It  is  especially  under  the  form  of  telepathy  and  sug- 
gestion that  the  scientists  of  to-day  have  unconsciously 
brought  back  the  much-disputed  question  of  mesmerism 
and  animal  magnetism.  The  English  and  American^ 
Societies  for  Psychical  Research  have  gathered  a  great^ 
number  of  authentic  cases  where  the  "  image  "  of  a 
person,  more  often  when  on  the  verge  of  death,  has 
appeared  to  a  relative  or  friend  in  spite  of  the  enormous 
distances  separating  them.  It  is  as  if  an  immediate 
and  spontaneous  communication  were  established  be- 
tween them  —  in  conditions  as  yet  unknown,  and  an- 


300  APPENDICES 

alogous  to  conditions  In  which  wireless  telegraphy  and 
telephony  take  place. 

The  phenomena  of  the  third  order  —  spiritoidal  phe- 
nomena —  take  us  Into  a  region  still  more  obscure  and 
mysterious.  They  present  themselves  to  us  with  an 
appearance  that  Is  often  Illusory,  always  enigmatic 
and  disturbing,  Implying  the  intervention  of  Intelligent 
forces,  not  supernatural  hut  extra-natural,  which  do  not 
belong  to  our  world  In  a  normal  way,  but  which  seem 
suddenly  to  make  an  Irruption  on  a  plane  of  nature 
foreign  to  that  In  which  we  move  and  have  our  being. 

Whatever  Interpretation  we  may  give  to  these  phe- 
nomena, however,  our  first  duty  Is  to  make  sure  of 
their  reality.  Let  us  beware  of  subordinating  the  ac- 
ceptation of  these  facts  to  any  theory  brought  for- 
ward In  explanation  of  them. 

With  the  exception  of  certain  phenomena  —  such  as 
hauntings,  which  should  be  the  object  of  special  Investi- 
gation—  the  spiritoidal  phenomena  seem  always  to 
have  as  their  necessary  condition  the  action  or  the  pres- 
ence of  individuals  called  mediums.  There  are  two 
kinds  of  mediums,  although  these  may  belong  alter- 
nately to  one  or  the  other  category:  the  mediums  who 
produce  effects  of  an  Intellectual  nature,  and  those  who 
produce  effects  of  a  physical  nature.  Both  physical  and 
Intellectual  effects  are  found  in  the  ordinary  table  lift- 
ing or  table  turning:  movements  of  rotation,  nutation, 
translation,  etc.,  and  the  words,  phrases,  and  speeches 
which  are  dictated  by  these  movements.  These  effects 
appear  distinctly  separated  when  considering,  on  the 
one  hand,  those  obtained  by  Mrs.  Piper,  which  are 
remarkable  for  the  exactness  of  the  information  given 


APPENDICES  301 

upon  the  relatives  and  antecedents  of  utter  strangers 
who  visit  her;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  extraor- 
dinary phenomena  produced  by  Eusapia  Palladino,  who 
causes  heavy  objects  to  move  from  a  distance,  the  pro- 
duction of  phosphorescent  lights  in  utter  darkness,  and 
projections  from  her  body  of  various  materialized 
forms,  etc. 

It  must  be  observed,  furthermore,  that  intellectual 
mediumism  presents  the  same  phenomena  as  those  ob- 
tained by  hypnotism  and  animal  magnetism  —  disso- 
ciation of  the  personality  or  cryptopsychism,  thought- 
reading,  clairvoyance,  etc. —  though  different  in  their 
character  of  apparent  spontaneity,  and  by  their  rela- 
tion to  certain  spiritistic  practises  and  beliefs.  But 
whatever  Interpretation  may  be  adopted  for  this  third 
order  of  facts.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  they  are  ex- 
tremely closely  related  to  those  of  the  two  preceding 
orders  and  that  they  come  under  the  direction  of  similar 
or  communal  laws. 

From  the  ensemble  of  these  facts  two  hypotheses 
suggest  themselves,  the  first  of  psychological  or  mental 
order,  the  second  of  physiological  or  physical  order. 
The  Important  thing  Is  to  know  that  there  exist  in  the 
human  soul  certain  faculties  of  perception  and  of  super- 
normal action.  These  faculties  are  usually  subcon- 
scious, or  cryptoldal,  active  under  conditions  as  yet  Im- 
perfectly defined;  nevertheless  they  are  real  and  are 
active  In  all  beings.  There  also  exist  in  the  human 
organism  certain  unknown  forces  which  are,  as  it  were, 
the  physical  agents  of  these  faculties,  and  which,  in 
the  ordinary  state  of  things,  are  equally  cryptoldal. 

Shall  we  go  farther  still?     Shall  we  admit  the  exist- 


302  APPENDICES 

ence,  outside  of  ourselves,  of  one  or  several  intelligent 
entities,  capable  of  collaborating  with  us  in  the  pro- 
duction of  certain  psychical  phenomena  mainly  through 
the  bringing  into  play  of  our  faculties  and  supernormal 
forces  ? 

How  shall  we  conceive  these  entities  ?  Are  they  the 
souls  of  the  dead?  Are  they  cosmic  intelligences,  or, 
as  in  the  conception  of  the  Greeks,  demons?  Are  they 
elementals,  larvae,  astral  microbes  as  the  occultists  call 
them?  Or  are  they  that  universal  intelligence  which 
humanity  calls  God? 

The  psychical  sciences,  which  hardly  dare  to  ask  the 
questions,  are  still  very  far  from  replying  to  them. 
Are  these  sciences,  however,  capable  of  bringing  a  use- 
ful and  practical  solution  to  the  religious  problem? 
This  is  the  point  upon  which  we  shall  particularly  in- 
sist. 

It  is  necessary  to  distinguish,  for  the  facility  of  study, 
two  inseparable  questions.  One  corresponds  to  the 
viewpoint  of  the  savant  or  the  philosopher;  the  other 
to  that  of  the  believer,  or  of  man  in  general:  according 
to  whether  one  considers  the  exterior  phenomenology  of 
religions,  or  the  intimate  and  profound  cause  of  the 
religious  sentiment. 

From  the  first  point  of  view  there  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  the  sciences  of  religion  will  find  in  the 
psychical  sciences  a  most  appreciable  help  for  the  orien- 
tation and  advancement  of  their  own  researches. 

The  history  of  religions  abounds  in  strange  and 
marvelous  phenomena  which  the  historian  at  first  shirks 
from  mentioning,  as  being  incredible  and  impossible, 


APPENDICES  303 

or  if  he  must  admit  them,  he  explains  them  as  being  a 
result  of  misunderstandings  and  frauds  —  as  the  ra- 
tional critics  of  the  eighteenth  century  explained  them. 
The  knowledge  of  psychical  phenomena,  as  a  direct 
result,  will  have  the  effect  of  widening  the  conception  of 
thaumaturgical  religious  facts,  in  showing  that  they 
may  have  a  certain  reality  without  attributing  to  them 
a  supernatural  character. 

William  James  has  said  that  the  recent  study  of  hyp- 
notic phenomena  has  enabled  scientific  men  to  admit  of 
the  possibility  of  miraculous  healing,  so  far  as  being 
considered  a  result  of  suggestion.  The  stigmata  of 
hysterical  patients  has  made  it  possible  to  accept  those 
of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  And  stories  of  "  possessions  " 
are  now  credible  since  we  have  cases  of  demonomania. 

Similarly,  on  studying  closely  the  life  and  character 
of  the  men  who  have  founded  or  renovated  certain 
religious  movements,  it  is  seen  that,  according  to  Wil- 
liam James,  "  the  manifestations  of  the  religious  life 
often  possess  a  close  rapport  with  the  subliminal  life. 
The  temperament  of  the  nevropath  appears  in  the 
various   religious  biographies.     It  would  be   difficult 
to  enumerate  the  names  of  religious  initiators  without 
mentioning  phenomena  of  automatism  which  they  mani- 
fested.    I  do  not  speak  of  the  prophets  and  the  der-  . 
vishes  only.  ...  I  speak  of  those  of  superior  mind,  ^ A-^  ^' 
the  creators  of  ideas.     Saint  Paul  had  visions,  ecstasies^-— ;-^^'i  ;^ 
He  was  gifted  with  the  power  of  glossolaliar^tHough  '  ,»>y 
he  attached  but  little  importance  to  it.     All  the  great   n-^  /     \ 
reformers,  the  great  saints,  the  great  heretics  —  Saint 
Bernard,  Fox,  Wesley,  Luther,  Ignatius  of  Loyola —    ^'^ 


304  APPENDICES 

had  visions,  voices,   ecstasies,  fiery  revelations,  etc." 

Thus  we  can  trace  in  the  history  of  religions  all  the 
psychic  phenomena,  clothed,  as  it  were,  under  a  religious 
cloak,  although  preserving  ^undeF  this  form  evident 
analogies  to  phenomena  of  hypnotism,  cryptopsychism, 
animal  magnetism,  telepathy,  and  spiritism. 

Who  cannot  but  be  struck  by  the  similarity  between 
ecstasis  and  hypnosis?  We  find  in  both  of  them  the 
same  state  of  mono-ideism,  anesthesia,  transfiguration. 
Does  not  religious  faith  engender,  as  does  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, visions,  stigmata,  seemingly  miraculous  cures? 
And  does  not  divine  inspiration,  as  well  as  diabolical 
possession,  present  singular  similarities  with  the  crypto- 
psychic  phenomena  or  those  of  the  dissociation  of  the 
personality? 

William  James,  in  speaking  of  the  similarity  of  con- 
version and  hypnotic  suggestions,  says  that  if  you  place 
under  the  influence  of  suggestion,  as  Professor  Coe  did, 
a  subject  who  combines  in  him  the  following  three  fac- 
tors: (i)  a  profound  sensibility;  (2)  a  tendency  to 
automatism;  (3)  the  capacity  to  submit  passively  to 
suggestion,  you  may  be  sure  that  you  will  obtain  a  sud- 
den conversion. 

Magnetoidal  facts,  also,  can  be  traced  in  the  history 
of  religions.  Can  we  not  recognize  them  in  the  atti- 
tudes and  gestures  of  certain  Egyptian  rites,  as  also  in 
the  great  importance  attributed  by  Christian  liturgy 
to  the  imposition  of  the  hands  and  to  the  breath? 

In  the  healing  of  the  hemorrhoidal  woman,  as  re- 
lated in  the  Gospels,  Jesus  acts  and  speaks  not  only  as 
would  a  modern  hypnotist,  but  also  as  would  a  profes- 
sional magnetizer.     In  the  words  of  St.  Luke : 


APPENDICES  305 

And  a  woman  having  an  issue  of  blood  twelve  years,  which 
had  spent  all  her  living  upon  physicians,  neither  could  be  healed 
of  any, 

Came  behind  him,  and  touched  the  border  of  his  garment: 
and  immediately  her  issue  of  blood  stanched. 

And  Jesus  said,  Who  touched  me?  When  all  denied,  Peter 
and  they  that  were  with  him  said,  Master,  the  multitude  throng 
thee  and  press  thee,  and  sayest  thou.  Who  touched  me  ? 

And  Jesus  said.  Somebody  hath  touched  me:  for  I  perceive 
that  virtue  is  gone  out  of  me. 

And  when  the  woman  saw  that  she  was  not  hid,  she  came 
trembling,  and  falling  down  before  him,  she  declared  unto  him 
before  all  the  people  for  what  cause  she  had  touched  him,  and 
how  she  was  healed  immediately. 

And  he  said  unto  her.  Daughter,  be  of  good  comfort:  thy 
faith  hath  made  thee  whole;  go  in  peace. 

(      The  cure,  according  to  Jesus,  was  therefore  the  effect 

i  of  two  concurrent  causes:  on  the  one  hand,  the  virtue 
emanating  from  him;  and  on  the  other,  the  faith  of  the 
patient.     In  other  words,   it  was  animal  magnetism 

j    (Mesmer's  doctrine)  and  suggestion  (the  doctrine  of 

^  the  School  of  Nancy). 

Similarly,  in  the  order  of  telepsychism,  such  facts 
as  those  of  thought-penetration,  prevision,  distant- 
seeing  —  of  which  there  are  too  many  authenticated 
accounts  to  doubt  their  existence  indefinitely  —  help  us 
to  understand  the  phenomena  of  prophetism,  the  gift 
of  tongues,  etc.,  of  which  every  religion  is  replete  with 
examples. 

Even  the  singular  facts  observed  with  spiritistic 
mediums  of  physical  phenomena  are  to  be  traced  in  the 
lives  of  certain  religious  personalities.     Apparitions, 


3o6  APPENDICES 

bilocatlons,  levitatlon,  and  hauntlngs  are  facts  which 
belong  In  common  to  religious  sciences  and  to  psychical 
sciences;  and  it  Is  to  be  hoped  that  the  latter  may  help 
the  former  to  determine  their  real  signification. 

We  are  not  yet  In  a  position  to  state  that  the  psychical 
sciences,  in  their  present  state,  are  capable  of  throwing 
much  light  upon  the  essential  basis  of  religion.  The 
religious  Idea  and  the  religious  sentiment,  taken  In  them- 
selves, seem  to  be  Independent  of  all  these  more  or  less 
pathological  phenomena.  It  Is,  we  believe.  In  the 
higher  aspirations  of  the  normal  faculties  of  human 
nature  that  religion  has  its  deep  and  perhaps  Inde- 
structible roots. 

Let  us  see,  however,  whether  we  cannot  find  an  hy- 
pothesis by  which  the  psychical  sciences  may  give  us 
some  useful  information  regarding  the  origin  and  des- 
tiny of  religion  in  humanity.  It  Is  in  the  realm  of 
splrltoldal  phenomena  that  this  hypothesis  should  be 
sought. 

In  the  actual  state  of  our  knowledge,  those  who  have 
tried  to  understand  these  phenomena  hesitate  between 
two  Interpretations:  (i)  that  which  would  explain 
them  by  the  sole  faculties  of  the  medium  who  operates 
subconsciously;  (2)  that  which  believes  they  are  mani- 
festations of  intelligences  external  to  our  world  —  in 
other  words,  the  animistic  or  cryptopsychic  Interpreta- 
tion and  the  spiritistic  interpretation.  On  the  one  side 
are  Drs.  Pierre  Janet,  Flournoy,  and  RIchet;  on  the 
other  side,  Frederic  Myers,  Sidgwick,  Hodgson,  and 
Oliver  Lodge. 

Up  to  the  present  time  the  scale  has  seemed  to  Incline 
in  favor  of  the  first  interpretation,  the  only  one  that 


APPENDICES  307 

might  a  priori  be  acceptable,  as  it  is  the  only  one  in 
accord  with  the  fundamental  postulates  of  the  scientific 
method.  But  we  might  well  suppose  that  in  the 
course  of  time  the  second  interpretation  will  be  found 
to  be  the  right  one.  Were  its  partisans  to  establish 
definitely  and  unquestionably  that  we  are  in  relation 
with  a  spirit  from  the  Beyond,  really  distinct  from  our 
own  spirit  and  not  the  creation  of  our  subconsciousness 
this  would  undoubtedly  be  an  immense  step  forward  in 
the  solution  of  these  problems. 

There  would  still  remain,  however,  many  other 
problems  to  be  solved. 

First  of  all,  the  identity  of  the  spirit  should  be 
established.  Ujsually  they  give  the  names  of  deceased 
persons;  but  are  they  to  be  believed?  May  they  not 
assume  the  mask  of  some  one  known  to  us  in  order  to 
enter  into  relationship  with  us?  Many  facts  seem  to 
justify  this  hypothesis.  Who  would  be  so  bold  as  to 
maintain  the  identity  of  controls  giving  the  names  of 
Stanton  Moses,  Rector,  Imperator,  Victor  Hugo,  etc.  ? 
Often,  also,  they  take  the  ideas  and  emotions  of  those 
to  whom  they  are  supposed  to  communicate  them. 

And  this  is  exactly  the  point  in  favor  of  the  crypto- 
psychic  interpretation.  But  our  reasoning  is  in  line 
with  the  hypothesis,  where  this  hypothesis  were  aban- 
doned as  insufficient  to  give  an  account  of  certain  par- 
ticularities of  the  facts  already  observed.  From  this, 
who  could  fail  to  suppose,  for  the  explanation  of  cer- 
tain religious  facts,  that  there  exist  several  cosmic  in- 
telligences capable  of  interesting  themselves  in  the  lives 
of  humans  and  of  intervening,  during  certain  epochs,  in 
order  to  direct  religious  evolution?     Hence  the  mir- 


3o8  APPENDICES 

acles  and  the  revelations,  which  take  different  forms 
according  to  their  different  milieux:  Buddhist,  Mo- 
hammedan, Roman  Catholic,  Protestant,  etc.  They 
would  be,  for  instance,  those  unknown  entities  trans- 
forming themselves  into  St.  Michael  and  Ste.  Catherine 
with  Joan  of  Arc;  into  the  Holy  Virgin  with  Berna- 
dette,  etc.  One  might  thus  reach  an  explanation  of 
certain  facts  belonging  to  the  history  of  religion.  But 
this  hypothesis  would  not  in  any  way  bring  us  nearer 
to  true  religion,  to  the  ideal  religion:  that  which  con- 
sists in  adoring  God,  praying  to  him  in  spirit  and  in 
truth. 

Let  us  suppose  it  possible  to  prove  that  it  is  really 
the  souls  of  the  dead  which  come  back  to  assure  us  of 
their  existence.  What  would  be  the  consequence  of 
such  a  certainty,  from  the  religious  point  of  view? 

Perhaps  it  would  be  the  justification  of  the  doctrine 
which  places  the  origin  of  all  religions  in  the  worship 
of  the  dead,  in  what  might  be  called  primitive  spirit- 
ism, that  of  the  savages,  ancestral  worship  as  in  China, 
etc.  Perhaps  it  would  mean,  also,  the  restoration  of 
such  beliefs  and  practises  in  our  own  times.  Thus  reli- 
gious evolution  would  complete  its  circle  and  come  back 
to  its  starting  point. 

To  many,  in  fact,  spiritism  forms  a  veritable  reli- 
gion. Are  there  not  to  be  found  in  America,  England, 
and  elsewhere,  spiritualistic  churches  which  count  their 
followers  by  the  thousands?  In  France  this  movement 
seems  less  intense  and  is  not  so  widely  spread.  But  if 
a  new  form  of  religion  were  to  appear  in  the  midst  of 
present-day  humanity,  and  were  to  develop  sufficient 
power  and  influence  to  compete  seriously  with  existing 


APPENDICES  309 

I  forms  of  religion,  It  would  seem  that  this  new  religion 
I  would  spring  from  the  very  heart  of  spiritism. 

Modern  spiritism  will  undoubtedly  differ  from  the 
I  ancient  In  Its  scientific  and  moral  character.  Neverthe- 
\  less  it  will  be  founded  upon  the  belief  of  the  survival 
I  of  the  dead,  and  upon  the  possibility  of  communicating 
I  with  them  by  the  intermediary  of  quasi-magical  proc- 
\  esses. 

But  can  religion  reduce  itself  to  the  sole  dogma  of 
a  future  life  and  the  Immortality  of  the  soul?  Is  not 
the  dogma  of  the  existence  of  God  more  essential, 
solely  essential,  as  William  James  puts  It? 

The  spiritistic  hypothesis  offers,  In  itself,  a  means  to 
find  the  very  existence  of  God.  If  the  spirits  are  in 
accord  In  teaching  us,  in  proving  to  us,  such  an  exist- 
ence, it  must  be  the  revelation  of  God  through  the 
spirits.  There  is  Indeed  something  quite  startling  In 
this  community  of  belief  between  the  living  and  the 
dead ;  yet  one  should  know  what  kind  of  God  it  Is  that 
the  spirits  reveal,  and  more  especially  what  kind  of 
proofs  they  bring  us  of  the  truth  of  their  beliefs. 
They  may  come  back  from  the  Beyond,  but  their  knowl- 
edge, which  may  be  more  extended  than  ours,  is  never- 
theless just  as  relative  as  our  own. 

Yet,  if  our  spirit  can,  in  its  subliminal  expression, 
enter  into  communication  with  other  spirits,  can  it  not 
also  feel  the  presence  of  some  Greater  Spirit?  Can  it 
not  have,  at  certain  moments,  the  intuition  of  a  Su- 
preme Presence,  the  presence  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
Absolute  and  Infinite,  Source  of  all  Truth,  of  all  Good 
and  Beauty?  This  would  appear  to  be  the  thought  of 
William  James:     "Although  he  may  be  beyond  the 


310  APPENDICES 

limits  of  the  individual  being  who  is  en  rapport  with 
him  in  religious  experience,  '  the  Greater  '  is  a  part  of 
his  subconscious  life  within  his  own  limits." 

Even  if  we  identify  the  phenomenon  of  religion 
with  a  phenomenon  of  telepathy  between  God  and  the 
soul  of  the  believer,  the  religious  problem  remains  as 
tantalizing  as  heretofore,  and  its  solution,  quite  apart 
from  science,  Is  a  matter  of  sentiment  and  of  faith. 
Every  intuition  is.  In  essence,  ineffable  and  incommuni- 
cable. Where  the  objective  verification  is  lacking,  it 
will  remain  forever  Impossible,  according  to  Alfred 
Foulllee,  to  distinguish  the  seer  from  the  visionary. 

But  whatever  progress  may  be  accomplished  in  the 
psychical  sciences,  and  whatever  may  become  of  the 
various  forms  of  religion  which  actuate  humanity,  for  a 
long  time  yet  and  perhaps  always.  In  the  heart  of  man 
shall  remain  the  supreme  Ideal  of  Justice  and  of 
Sanctity.  And  side  by  side  with  this  will  be  the  enig- 
matic inscription  found  by  the  apostles  of  early  Chris- 
tian times,  which  perhaps  neither  time  nor  space  will 
efface :     ''  To  God  Unknown/' 


NOTE  III 

THE    RADIATION    OF    THE    HUMAN    BRAIN 
(From  La  realite  du  monde  sensible j  by  Jean  Jaures) 

As  the  brain  is  enclosed  in  an  organic  envelope,  solid 
and  in  appearance  closed,  the  imagination  has  a  tend- 
ency to  picture  it  as  being  isolated  from  the  exterior 
world.  But,  in  reality  it  may  be  that  what  we  call  the 
brain  is  perpetually  mixed  and  confounded  with  the 
world,  through  a  subtle  and  constant  exchange  of  secret 
activities. 

We  already  have  seen  that  for  the  man  who  would 
look  from  without  upon  the  brain  perceiving  the  light, 
the  brain  would  extend,  physiologically  speaking,  to  the 
focus  of  light  lost  in  the  mysterious  depths  of  the  night. 
It  would  be,  as  it  were,  like  a  comet  with  condensed 
nucleus,  its  tail  sweeping  into  space. 

When  we  look  at  another  human  being,  we  send  to- 
ward him  a  ray  of  light  from  our  soul,  heavy  with 
anger,  or  soft  with  tenderness.  Evidently,  then,  our 
cerebral  activity  is  spread  into  space;  it  widens,  yet  it 
loses  none  of  its  precision,  none  of  its  organization. 
Those  who  imagine  that  our  brain  is  entirely  contained 
in  the  cranium  are  much  mistaken. 

With  this  point  of  view,  all  the  phenomena  —  still 
obscure  and  imperfectly  controlled  —  of  magnetism, 
distant  vision,  and  suggestion  would  contribute  to 
give  us  a  better  idea  of  our  brain. 

311 


//^< 


312^^—^    -       APPENDICES  ^ /^  ^^(^^^^ 

If  it  be  true,  as  has  been  affirmed  by  reliable  experi- 
menters, that  the  human  organism  is  capable  of  de- 
veloping a  magnetism  sufficient  to  lift  a  table  from  the 
ground,  that  it  is  especially  through  the  exercise  of 
the  will  that  such  phenomena  are  obtained,  and  that 
it  is  unconsciously  that  these  persons  are  capable  of 
generating  a  motor-force  of  unknown  nature  upon  ex- 
terior objects,  it  would  be  quite  true  also  that  this  cere- 
bral energy  is  capable  of  radiating  far  out  of  its  focus. 
It  appears,  too,  that  the  "  self  "  is  capable  of  exerting 
an  action  upon  ordinary  matter  without  having  re- 
course, at  least  consciously,  to  the  intermediary  of  the 
organism,  which  would  act,  then,  not  as  an  active  in- 
strument but  as  a  passive  conductor. 

The  phenomenon  of  second-sight  has  been  demon- 
strated without  any  doubt  In  certain  hypnotic  cases. 
Subjects  can  see  and  read  through  a  barrier  which  for 
others  remains  opaque.  Therefore  the  opacity  of  mat- 
ter is  but  relative.  And,  as  In  the  case  of  our  imagina- 
tion, that  which  most  separates  our  brain  from  the  sur- 
rounding world,  is  the  opacity  of  our  organism.  When 
this  opacity  is  removed  it  leaves  our  cerebral  focus  and 
the  universe  In  immediate  contact. 

Thus  the  brain  can  radiate  and  act  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  human  organism.  It  does  not  appear  any 
longer  as  an  organ  shut  off  and  enclosed  In  a  bony  cav- 
ity. We  now  behold,  in  the  order  of  physiology  even, 
the  Individual  "  self  "  widening  out  and,  without  losing 
its  ordinary  connections  with  a  particular  organism, 
creating  for  itself,  outside  of  this  organism,  an  indefi- 
nite sphere  of  action. 

Specialists  have  not  yet  been  able  to  control  the  trans- 


APPENDICES  313 

mission  of  thought  from  one  subject  to  another,  with- 
out the  intermediary  of  speech;  but  this  fact  has  been 
attested  by  a  great  number  of  serious  experimenters. 
In  itself  it  constitutes  a  prodigious  achievement  which 
must  be  separated  and  distinguished  absolutely  from 
spoken  suggestion ;  for  the  latter  resorts  to  well  known 
physiological  and  psychological  processes. 

When,  however,  a  subject  transmits,  without  the  use 
of  speech,  an  idea,  a  thought,  an  impression,  or  a 
volition  to  another  subject,  there  must  evidently  exist  a 
radiation  of  thought  into  space;  for  two  brains  are 
thus  placed  in  immediate  relation,  through  this  very 
radiation.  Thus  the  precise  form  of  our  thought  is 
propagated  through  space  without  alteration,  as  are  the 
forms  of  light,  color,  shade.  In  a  word,  our  brain  is, 
as  it  were,  a  focus  of  thought;  and  even  as  the  sun  fills 
all  the  spheres  which  its  light  occupies,  and  it  would 
be  futile  to  reduce  the  sun  to  being  but  a  globe  from 
which  its  light  emanates,  so  the  brain's  sphere  where 
the  action  of  its  thoughts  may  extend,  is  of  an  ampli- 
tude unknown  to  us. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  all  these  phenomena 
are  studied  with  a  sufficiently  philosophical  attitude  of 
mind,  or,  more  exactly,  metaphysical;  one  is  occupied 
only  with  the  moral  and  social  consequences  which  the 
practise  of  suggestion  entails;  and  it  is  certain  that 
the  problem  of  "  free-will  "  is  again  foremost,  in  view 
of  these  facts. 

But  apart  from  this,  these  phenomena  are  of  greater 
import:  they  attest  that  there  exist  in  man  certain  ex- 
traordinary and  unknown  forces  which  are  nil,  or  al- 
most so,  in  his  normal  state,  but  which  are  manifested 


314  APPENDICES 

in  certain  cases  that  we  may  call  abnormal.     There 
exists  in  us  an  "  unknown  self  "  capable  of  exerting  a 
direct  action  upon  matter,  of  lifting  a  foreign  body 
with  an  energetic  will,  just  as  if  it  were  its  own  body, 
of  piercing  by  a  look  the  opacity  of  walls,  and  of  gath- 
ering from  afar  and  through  space  the  unexpressed 
thought  of  another  "  self." 
^  r    We  may  ask  whether  we  may  not  have  here  the 
^  elements  of  a  new  progress  in  the  consciousness  and 
^     I  the  life  of  humanity.  *  Why  should  evolution,  for  the 
■  actual  and  normal  man,  have  reached  its  ultimate  term  ?.^ 

It  would  suffice  to  incorporate  in  man's  normal  be- 
ing the  prodigious  forces  which  hypnotism  places  at  his 
disposal,  for  him  to  become  a  new  being.  He  should 
acquire  magnetic  action  upon  exterior  objects,  the  deep 
penetration  of  the  look,  and  the  immediate  perception 
of  the  thoughts  of  others  through  his  own  thoughts, 
without  losing  possession  of  himself  and  with  the  con- 
tinuity of  memory  which  alone  preserves  one's  in- 
dividuality. It  would  mean  that  instead  of  keeping  in 
himself  two  distinct  personalities  —  his  normal  self  and 
the  abnormal  self  which  hypnotism  develops  —  he 
would  be  able  to  fuse  these  two  personalities  into 
one,  thereby  uniting  their  diverse  potentialities. 

Perhaps  the  universal  and  regulated  practise  of  hyp- 
notism, the  methodical  alternation  of  the  normal  and 
the  hypnotic  states,  habit  and  heredity,  will  bring  about 
this  fusion  of  selves  and  so  the  creation  of  a  new 
humanity. 

Vainly  will  it  be  objected  that  these  new  powers 
which  man  must  assimilate  manifest  themselves  during 


APPENDICES  315 

states  of  coma  or  pain,  and  that,  thus,  they  are  repug- 
nant to  the  healthy  normal  being.  It  is  exactly  here 
that  the  human  being  is  lacking:  in  those  elements  of 
coordination  and  fusion  between  the  normal  state  and 
the  new  powers. 

Who  can  say  that  throughout  the  immense  evolu- 
tion from  amphibia  to  man,  all  progress  has  not  been 
linked  with  periods  of  crises  and  suffering?  When  the 
first  fish  transformed  its  fins  into  wings  to  fly  in  the  air, 
who  knows  that  its  respiratory  organs  did  not  suffer  as 
a  result?  The  unrest  and  anxiety  which  children  mani- 
fest at  the  approach  of  sleep  are  thoroughly  character- 
istic. The  state  of  sleeping  and  that  of  waking  are 
two  radically  different  states,  and  the  passage  from 
one  to  the  other  constitutes  in  itself  a  veritable  revolu- 
tion. We  are  accustomed  to  it  now,  and  are  uncon- 
scious of  it;  but  the  little  child  is  not  accustomed  to 
it,  and  suffers  from  it.     Perhaps,  even,  it  is  afraid? 

Little  by  little,  we  are  able  to  assimilate  ourselves 
to  sleep,  which  is,  in  spite  of  appearance,  a  violent 
state  of  being,  since  it  is  the  suppression  of  the  definite 
personality  which  we  govern,  to  be  replaced  by  an 
obscure  personality  which  governs  itself,  and  which 
often  feeds  upon  monstrous  sentiments  and  frightful 
visions. 

/ 

And  when  man  shall  have  assimilated  the  potentiali- 
ties of  the  magnetic  and  hypnotic  states,  can  we  not 
realize  how,  in  the  current  of  everyday  life,  the  human 
organism  may  then  become  an  accessory?  No  doubt  it 
would  remain  present  in  his  consciousness,  as  the  nee- 


3i6  APPENDICES 

essary  root  of  his  individuality;  but  the  **  ego,"  the 
**  self,"  would  be  capable  of  moving,  by  direct  voli- 
tion, other  bodies  than  his  own. 

It  would  no  longer  be,  then,  the  exclusive  soul  of  a 
particular  organism,  but  rather  the  soul  of  all  things  as 
far  as  its  action  could  extend.  And  if  it  could  apply 
itself  to  the  whole  universe,  it  would  then  become  the 
soul  of  the  world. 

f    /  *  l^i  ^t^       ^r       y 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Acadimie  des  Sciences,  20,  21 
Active  hypotheses,  50 
Agrippa,  293 
Alrutz,  Sydney,  168-171 
Analogical  hypotheses,  72 
Animal  magnetism,  8,  16,  24,  etc. 
Auguste  M.    (subject),  215-217 
Automatic   writing,    59,   259 
Automatisme  psychologique,  23 
Autoscopy,  235 
Autosuggestion,  54,  56 
Azam,  Dr.,  99 

Babinski,  Prof.,  25 
Bacon,  46,  57,  64,  141 
Bardonnet,  150,  153,  154 
Barety,  Dr.,  148,  167,  168 
Beaunis,  M.  H.,  187-190 
Belief,    importance    of,    212,    221, 

257,  271 
Bergson,  Prof.,  43 
Berillon,  14,  91 
Bernard,   Claude,   21,  46,   48,  49, 

53,  64,  67,  68,  228 
Bernheim,  Dr.,  8,  12,  33,  110-114, 

133,  143,  147 
Biactinic  force,   26,   60,   etc. 
Biactinism,  8,  26,  etc. 
Binet,  Dr.,  210 
Biomagnetic  action,  158 
Boirac  Method,  88,  165 
Braid,  115,  129,  147,  165 
Branly,  2i 
Buckley,  Major,  240,  241 


Cagliostro,  258 
Camisards  of  Cevennes,  99 
Campanella,  294 
Catalepsy,  95 

Charcot,  8,  12,  92,  94,  95,  211 
Chevreul,  28 
Clairvoyance,  28,  61,  etc. 

psychological,  187 
Coe,  Prof.,  302 
Communication  of  emotions,  183 

of  movement,  184 

of  thought,  27,  28,  etc. 
Comte,  Auguste,  5,  13 
Convulsionaries    of    St.    Medard, 

99 
Cours  iheoretique  et  pratique  de 

Braidisme,  125 
Credulity,  state  of,  103 
Crocq,  Dr.,  83,  116,  117 
Crookes,  William,  12,  36,  44,  97, 

264 
Cross-correspondences,  286 
Cryptopsychism,  24,  25,  etc. 
Crystal  gazing,  59,  258 
Cumberlandism,  190 
Curie,  Pierre,  21 
Cuvier,  177 

Deleuze,  44,  144,  155 
Descartes,  36,  153,  154,  229,  267 
Dissociation    of    the    personality, 

23,  59 
Divining-rod,  cause  of  movement 
of,  28,  258 


319 


320 


INDEX 


Dreams  of  a  Spirit  Seer,  278 
Duchatel,  Edmond,  28,  283 
Dufay,  Dr.,  242-247 
Dumontpallier,   12 
Dupond,  Madame,  case  of,  268- 

270 
Du  Potet,  44,  144,  155 
Du  Prel,  Carl,  297 
Durand    de   Gros,    8,    14,    56,   79, 

108,  124,  125 
Durville,  Gaston,  84 

Emden  Prize,  Fanny,  20 
Emotional  diapsychism,  183 
Esprits   et   mediums,   23,   268-270, 

273 
Eusapia  Palladino,  see  Palladino 
Experimental  Method,  21,  41,  etc. 

reasoning,  67 
Exteriorization    of    the    sensitive- 
ness, 24,  214-218,  237 


Hericourt,  M.  J.,  198 
Herteville,  Madame,  case  of,  278, 

279 
Hodgson,  Dr.  Richard,  275,  305 
Home,  D.  D.,  16 
Human  Personality,  276,  282 
Husson,  Dr.,  44 
Hyloscopy,  15,  24,  etc. 
Hypnoidal  phenomena,  23,  34,  etc. 
Hypnoscope,   83 
Hypnotism,  8,  23,  etc. 
Hypotaxy,  108,   124,   129 

Idea-forces,  law  of,  122 
Illusion,  47,  70,  73,  74 
Inert  hypotheses,  50 
Inductive  hypotheses,  72 
Intellectual  diapsychism,   181,   186 
Intermittent  subjects,  127 
Introduction  d  I'etude  experimen- 
tale  de  la  medicine,  53 


Pari  A,  Abbe,  33 
Fascination,  state  of,  103 
Flournoy,   Prof.,    12,   20,    39,   264, 

268-270,  273,  305 
Fouillee,  Alfred,  122,  308 

Galvani,  17 

Gasparin,  Count  de,  264 

Geley,  Gustave,  37,  39,  255 

Gibert,  Dr.,  191-198 

Girault,  Dr.,  242-245 

Grasset,  20 

Gregory,    William,    12,    44,    176, 

178,    180,    183,    201,    207-209, 

240 
Grove,  Mrs.  (medium),  285 
Gustave   P.    (subject),    198,   217- 

220 


James,  William,  12,  275,  301,  302, 

307,  308 
Janet,  Dr.  Pierre,  12,  23,  59,  loo, 

168,    177,    191-198,    272,    296, 

305 
Jaures,  Jean,  309 
Jean  B.,  case  of,  248-253 
Jean  M.  (subject),  217 
Joire,  Paul,  12 
Jussieu,   Antoine-Laurent   de,   44, 

161 

Kant,  278 
Kernig,  93 
Kircher,  Father,  117 

Lafontaine,  Charles,  44,  81 
Lajoie,  Dr.,  116 


INDEX 


321 


La  Magie  science  naturelle,  291 

La  realite  du  monde  sensible,  309 

Lasegue,  93 

Laverdant,  case  of,  125,  128,  141 

Leqons  d'anatomie,  177 

Le  diagnostic  de  la  suggestibilite, 

86 
Leibnitz,  151 
Leonie    (Madame  B.),   177,   191- 

198 
Lethargy,  56,  95,  etc. 
Letters  to  a  Candid  Inquirer  on 

Animal  Magnetism,  176,   178 
Vhomme  et  I' intelligence,  77,  82 
Liebeault,  Dr.,  8,  33,  131,  133,  144, 

187-190 
Liegeois,  Dr.,   33 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  12,  44,  275-288, 

305 
Lucidity,  242-253,  262 
Lucidity  and  Intuition,  28,  255 
Ludovig    S.    (subject),    179,    203, 

217,  238-240. 
Luys,  Dr.,  116 


MacAlpine,  Madame,  case  of, 
282 

Magnetic  rapport,  142,  236,  258 

Magnetoidal  phenomena,  24,  26, 
etc. 

Marie   (subject),  242-247 

Marmontel  Case,  The,  279-282 

Memory,  233,  234,  254 

Mental  suggestion,  27,  34 

Mesmer,  8,  12,  34,  35,  144,  145- 
147/  155,  161-164 

Mesmerism,  see  Animal  Magnet- 
ism 

Metagnomy,  10,  63,  etc. 


Metapsychic   phenomena,   defined, 

38 
Mill,  Stuart,  64,  138 
Mohammed,  99 
Motor  diapsychism,  184 
Moutin  Process,  70,  85-93,  165 
Myers,  Frederic,  12,  275,  276,  278, 

282,  283,  305 

Neuric  force,  148 
Neurocritic  process,  87,  92 
Neuromuscular    hyperexcitability, 

211 
Nevroses  et  idees  fixes,  23 
Newnham,     Madame     (medium), 

277 
Noiset,  General,  33 

OcHOROwicz,  Dr.,  83,  188 
Osty,  Dr.,  205,  237,  255,  262 
Our  Hidden  Forces,  6,  21,  22,  27, 
etc. 

Palladino,  Eusapia,  16,  21,  299 
Paradoxical    suggestion,    123 
Parapsychic   phenomena,    defined. 

Passivity,  state  of,  103,  104 

Pasteur,  21 

Pendulum  of  Chevreul,  28,  88,  258 

Perception,  233 

Perceptive  telepsychism,  272 

Philips,  Dr.,  125,  129 

Phreno-magnetism,  207-209 

Piper,  Mrs.,  284,  285,  298 

Plausible   suggestion,   123 

Polarity,  phenomenon  of,  218,  219 

Polyetism,  56 

Pouchet,  Prof.,  223 

Prevision,  233,  234 


322 


INDEX 


Psychical     sciences,     classification 

of,  22,  34 
Psychodynamy,  34 
Psychometry,  28,  254,  272 
Puysegur,    Marquis    de,    44,    120, 

144,  155,  175 

QuACKENBOS,  Dr.  John,  240 

Radiant  state,  97 

Raymond  S.  (subject),  248-253 

Reading   through    the    finger-tips, 

238-240 
Reichenbach,  12,  147 
Reinforced  suggestion,  132 
Richet,  Charles,  12,  20,  36,  44,  77, 

82,  127,  135,  200,  264,  305 
Rochas,   Colonel   de,   20,   36,   214, 

215,  237 
Romberg,  93 
Ruault,  Albert,  198,  224-227 

School  of  Charcot,  211 
of  Nancy,  7,  14,  20,  etc. 
of  Paris,   133 
of  the  Salpetriere,  7,  20,  23,  etc. 

Schrenk-Notzing,  Dr.  von,  205 

Second  sight,  242-253 

Sensitivometer,  84 

Sensorial  diapsychism,  180,  181 

Sheyne-Stockes,  93 

Sidgwick,   Prof.   Henry,   275,  284, 

305 
Simulation,  48,  55,  56,  70,  73 
Sollier,  Dr.,  235 


Somnambulism,  56,  59,  etc. 

Spiritism,  9,  29-31,  etc. 

Spiritoidal  phenomena,  24,  34,  etc. 

Subconsciousness,  phenomena  of, 
24 

Suggestibility,  methods  of  deter- 
mining, 81-93 

Suggestion,  7,  23,  etc. 

Suggestometer,  84 

Survival  of  Man,  The,  275 

Swedenborg,  279 

Teleopsy,  242   • 
Telepathy,  24,  27,  etc. 
Telepsychism,  24,  34,  etc. 
Terrien,  Dr.,  257 
Thompson,  Mrs.  (medium),  285 
Thury,  Prof,  147,  264 
Torpor,  state  of,  103,  104 
Transference,      phenomenon      of, 

209-212 
Transmission   of  thought,  24,  27, 

etc. 

Vaschide,  Dr.,  205 

Verrall,  Madame   (medium),  278, 

280-282 
Vielet,  Victor,  120,  176 
Vision  at  a  distance,  242 
Voisin,  Auguste,  116 

Wiltshire,  Sir,  241,  242 

Zoomagnetisme,  144 
Zschokke,  176 


h- 


THE  PSYUHULUTJY  OF 
THE  FUTURE 

(UAvenir  des  Sciences  Psychiques) 


By   EMILE   BOIRAC 
Author  of ' '  Our  Hidden  Forces' ' 

Translated  with  a  Preface  by  Dr.  W.  de  KERLOR 


*HIS  work  by  the  noted  French  psychologist  speaks 
the  first  authoritative  word  on  the  subject  of  occult 
phenomena.  The  author  has  experimented  for  years 
in  order  to  determine  what  basis  there  was  for  admit- 
ting or  rejecting  the  claims  of  though  t-transference, 
/*X-ray'  virion",  automatic  writing,  psychic  and  mental 
healing,  and  survival  after  death.  He  has  subjected  each 
of  these  phenomena  to  closest  scientific  scrutiny,  endea- 
voring to  reproduce  their  manifestations  by  laboratory 
methods,  under  conditions  which  did  not  admit  the  criti- 
cism of  fraud.  In  this  book  he  explains  the  results  of  his 
researches  and  passes  his  verdict  on  each  of  the  impor- 
tant  problems    which  so   long   have   baffled  mankind. 


Professor  Boirac's  researches  have  laid  the  cor- 
ner-stone of  a  new  and  important  science.  One  of 
the  interesting  developments  is  the  confirmation  of 
the  fact  that  the  human  body  radiates  a  powerful 
magnetic  energ-y,  capable  of  producing  effects  at  a 
distance.  The  important  psychical  laws  he  un- 
covers have  direct  practical  application;  and  he 
makes  suggestions  for  taking  advantage  of  them  in 
the  treatment  of  the  sick  and  of  criminals,  and  in 
increasing  the  normal  efficiency  of  the  individual. 

With  8  illustrations  from  photographs. 
Cloth,  8vo,  net  $2.50 


Publishers       —       FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY       —       New  York 


The 

WfEHOUSElj 
ffBMiClscol 


